Alejandra Rocha Character Analysis in All the Pretty Horses

Don Hector’s daughter, and a skillful horseback rider of a black Arabian on the hacienda. Alejandra attends an expensive private school in Mexico City, where she spends time with her mother, but she’s impatient with society life and prefers to spend time on the hacienda. She is willful and proud, riding one of John Grady’s horses against her father’s wishes, and boldly knocking at John Grady’s door the first evening they sleep together. Alejandra is also fiercely loyal: it is because she has given her word to her great-aunt, and because she fears the loss of her father’s love, that she refuses to run away with John Grady in the end.

Alejandra Rocha Character Timeline in All the Pretty Horses

The timeline below shows where the character Alejandra Rocha appears in All the Pretty Horses. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...the others are asleep, John Grady and Rawlins smoke cigarettes and talk about the girl, Alejandra, who goes to a fancy prep school in Mexico City. Rawlins says she’s a fancy... (full context)

...and watch the dancers and then the girls at the other end of the wall. Alejandra, her hair tied in a blue ribbon, is dancing with a boy from the San... (full context)

John Grady asks Alejandra to dance, and for the first time he touches her on her small hand and... (full context)

...that the horses are more manageable when ridden regularly—John Grady loves riding, and loves when Alejandra watches him ride. He rides up to one of the lagunas, or small lakes, whispering... (full context)

Innocence, Expertise, and Knowledge Theme Icon

...sitting on the tiles, or to watch Carlos, the cook, take a breakfast tray to Alejandra in the opposite dining room alone, before she rides up to the ciénaga (swamp) road... (full context)

John Grady rides back slowly on the Arabian, hoping Alejandra will come back so they can switch horses again, but she doesn’t. As he walks... (full context)

...a piano, a pair of Greener guns, and other belongings of the dueña (madame) Alfonsa, Alejandra’s grandaunt and godmother. There are pictures of her taken in front of European cathedrals, and... (full context)

Alfonsa says she lost her fingers in a shooting accident when she was seventeen, Alejandra’s age. She says Alejandra will be at the hacienda for the summer. Alfonsa says she... (full context)

Several nights later, Alejandra knocks at John Grady’s bunk. She asks what Alfonsa said to him, and John Grady... (full context)

...her father’s family and of Mexico. One night he swims out into a lake, and Alejandra follows him, her hair floating in the water. John Grady feels that the betrayal makes... (full context)

...side of the house, but the next morning they’re gone. For the next nine nights, Alejandra comes to his bed, telling him she doesn’t care and sleeping against his chest, before... (full context)

After the nine days, Alejandra returns to the city. The next evening, John Grady speaks to the hacendado in the... (full context)

...is a French idea. Alfonsa thinks he is being selfish in not wanting to send Alejandra to France, Don Héctor says, but she may be right, or perhaps Alejandra will go... (full context)

Later, John Grady sits on his bunk and remembers what Alejandra had said the night before—I’ll do anything you say, exactly what he had said to... (full context)

...Antonio says no one can advise him. John Grady concurs, saying that he’ll speak to Alejandra when she returns. Antonio seems confused, saying that she’s been here since yesterday. (full context)

Meaningful and Gratuitous Violence Theme Icon

...Goshee, and about everything he doesn’t know about him. He decides not to think of Alejandra—to save up those thoughts—and instead thinks of horses. He dreams of dead men standing around,... (full context)

...must have paid them out, John Grady says. He expects it has to do with Alejandra—there is no other explanation. Rawlins says he was just in a hospital ward, and could... (full context)

Rawlins says he knows John Grady wants to go back to the ranch for Alejandra and for the horses. Rawlins tells him not to go, but John Grady says he... (full context)

...(mountain ranges). He wonders what kind of dream might bring him luck. He thinks about Alejandra riding, and then of the last time he saw Blevins. He’d had a dream in... (full context)

...in a certain country and not another. No one speaks of Don Héctor, Alfonsa, or Alejandra. (full context)

...prison. She says he knows that, and that he also knows what the terms were—that Alejandra won’t see him again. Alfonsa says that many women in her family have suffered disastrous... (full context)

...happiness of others. But that isn’t true, she says. She supported John Grady’s cause against Alejandra’s mother’s tantrums. Alfonsa is not a society person, she says. Society seems to be a... (full context)

Alfonsa sees a child, but also a version of herself, in Alejandra. In another life she could perhaps have been a soldier, she says, but she will... (full context)

...people whose lives were satisfactory to them, and she’d like that to be different for Alejandra. She has no fixed opinions about how she should live, but just knows that she... (full context)

John Grady says Alfonsa won’t let him make his case for being with Alejandra, and she says his case is that things happened outside his control—which isn’t anything to... (full context)

...almost twelve hours, and waits most of the morning at the telephone exchange to call Alejandra. He says he has to see her, but she insists she can’t. She’s going to... (full context)

...of the old town and looks through the shop windows looking for a gift for Alejandra. He finally buys a plain silver necklace. Her train arrives close to nine, and when... (full context)

John Grady says he must tell Alejandra what happened, everything from Blevins to the cuchillero. When Alejandra looks up she’s crying, and... (full context)

Late that night they make love, and Alejandra tells John Grady that she saw him dead in a dream long ago, being carried... (full context)

...has led to this moment, and after it leads nowhere. He tries to reason with Alejandra, but it’s to no avail. They walk together to the train station, and when he... (full context)

...reaches her. He wonders if the captain is still alive and thinks about Blevins and Alejandra. He remembers the sadness he’d first seen in Alejandra, which he thought he had understood,... (full context)