Failure In John Steinbeck's The Red Pony

Humans are guaranteed to be imperfect. This is a natural characteristic of us, and is impossible to avoid. The Red Pony, a collection of short stories by John Steinbeck, strongly addresses this topic of humans, even adults being imperfect. Throughout the stories, Steinbeck repeatedly demonstrates that humans do not always make the best decisions, and often make mistakes and fail, despite their best efforts. This failure often results in death, often arising in mixed emotions, which often include distress. The Red Pony correlates the ideas of death and humans being imperfect, through a series of narratives surrounding a young boy rankled be the death of animals and humans around him, often due to human mistakes.

The book begins with the short …show more content…
This man, named Gitano, stubbornly presses that he was born there and wants to die there. Mr. Tiflin does not agree with this, but grudgingly allows Gitano to stay for one night before leaving for his relatives in Monterey. During this time, Mr. tiflin compares Gitano to Old Easter, his first horse, whom he jokingly threatens to “put out of [their] misery.” The next day, Gitano secretly leaves, without his pack, taking Mr. Tiflin’s first horse, Old Easter. Gitano’s stealing shows that despite someone’s age, they can still make controversial decisions. Although Mr.Tiflin clearly did not care for keeping Old Easter, and was dreading the day he would have to bury him, Gitano need not have stolen the horse. Alternatively, Mr. Tiflin did not want to bury Old Easter and was joking about shooting him. From this side, Mr. Tiflin seems insensitive to his horse, and Gitano’s actions might have spared Old Easter from being shot by his master. Although this short story does not dwell on this theme for very long, the next returns to Billy Buck making an unusual choice because of a …show more content…
Tiflin’s mare, Nellie, bred by a stallion in the city, as long as Jody works for the money over the summer. Jody immediately agrees, and soon goes with Billy Buck to get Nellie bred. Over the next 11 months, Jody grows more and more anxious, rankled by Gabilan’s death, which he blames on Billy Buck. He eventually makes Billy Buck promise that he’ll get Jody a good colt. This anxiety also compels him to visit Nellie one night. Later this day, Nellie begins giving birth, and Billy Buck and Jody stand nearby. Soon, Billy unfortunately realizes that the colt has turned around backwards in the womb. Billy demands that Jody leave, but Jody stubbornly stays. After cursing at Jody, Billy remembers his promise, and realizes that he will have to kill Nellie to get the colt out alive. Generally, the colt’s bones would be broken so it can come out, so although the colt would die, the mare would survive. This shows that even Billy Buck, despite his reputation with horses, can end up having to make hard decisions. Aside from getting Jody a colt and Billy Buck keeping his promise, this decision has no other advantages, for Jody and Mr.Tiflin will have to wait a few years until the colt can do any work. The burden of getting Jody the colt is thrust upon Billy, the first of many bad choices by both Jody and Billy. Later, Jody becomes overanxious, which woke the entire household, and evidently put Billy into a fickle mood. Had he been

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