Throughout the storylines of Cormac Mcarthy's All the Pretty Horses and Sophocles' Oedipus the King, the protagonists, John Grady Cole and Oedipus, are scarred both physically and mentally by their own actions and the actions of those around them. The act which causes the scar carries with it much suffering that is assumed to bring wisdom as stated by Gustavo in All the Pretty Horses, however this assumption is incorrect. The responses of John Grady and Oedipus to their suffering and scars disprove the existence of wisdom from suffering, Gustavo's statement, and the ability for suffering to ennoble.

The word scar originates from the Greek word eschara meaning hearth, a reference to burns. The scar is the body's permanent memory of its breaching, a mark of violation and yet also a mark of transformation that never disappears. In associating scar with eschara, a wound becomes a visible sign of being burned by the divine, a spiritual mark.

With scar defined the reader can determine that the "wisdom of the scars" does not exist. To support this idea is the dialog given by Oedipus, after he has discove

After Oedipus's past is revealed the chorus states:

From the quote the reader can sense the suffering that John Grady is undergoing from Blevins's death. However, in the rest of the novel Grady never receives any wisdom from his current plight. At the end of All the Pretty Horses, John Grady Cole is left in a state of nihilistic despair.

John Grady Cole's situation closely mirrors that of Oedipus in that Grady gains no wisdom from his suffering. At the beginning of the novel Grady loses his home and suffers a great deal, then later in the novel when Blevins is shot, he suffers yet again.

Throughout the storylines of Cormac Mcarthy's All the Pretty Horses and Sophocles' Oedipus the King, the protagonists, John Grady Cole and Oedipus, are scarred both physically and mentally by their own actions and the actions of those around them. Each protagonist carried with them a multitude of both physical and mental suffering; however, the responses and effects each character had to the suffering were different. With the responses of John Grady and Oedipus to their suffering and scars one can disprove the existence of wisdom from suffering, contradict Gustavo's statement, and the determine the ability for suffering to ennoble or degrade. The protagonists of the novels also present to the reader the idea that the relationship between wisdom and suffering exists as two opposing forces that will never meet.

"People of Thebes, my countrymen, look on Oedipus, He solved the famous riddle with his brilliance, he rose to power, a man beyond all power. Who could behold his greatness without envy? Now what a black sea of terror has overwhelmed him. Now as we keep our watch and wait the final day, count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last." (Oedipus the King li

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Approximate Word count = 1193
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)