All the Pretty Horses
by Cormac McCarthy

All the Pretty Horses: Flashbacks 1 key example

Part 4
Explanation and Analysis—Gustavo's Idealism:

In Alfonsa’s last speech to John Grady in Part 4, she tells stories from her youth, including her romance with Gustavo. She offers a flashback of Gustavo's idealistic life philosophy:

He said that those who have endured some misfortune will always be set apart but that it is just that misfortune which is their gift and which is their strength and that they must make their way back into the common enterprise of man for without they do so it cannot go forward and they themselves will wither in bitterness.