The Red Pony

“The Gift” is the first installment in John Steinbeck’s collection of stories about the Tiflin ranch in the Salinas Valley, and this short story primarily embodies The Connection Between People and Their Environment. The ranch offers views of “the white town of Salinas and the geometric fields of the great valley” (152), but it is situated outside of the town itself. Several important features of the ranch are the “cypress tree” (139) and the “sagebrush line where the cold spring ran out of its pipe” (139). Sage is a prominent motif in these stories, highlighting a specific kind of plant that is native to Monterey County, offering a sense of place and evoking a scent.

The story begins with the interaction between the ranch hand and the ranch’s environment: “At daybreak Billy Buck emerged from the bunkhouse and stood for a moment on the porch looking up at the sky” (137). By opening the story with Billy’s interaction with the sky itself, an appreciation for nature in general, and the Salinas Valley in particular, is made central. Indeed, Jody’s connection with both the ranch and his pony, Gabilan, which he names after a nearby mountain range, is at the heart of this first story, capturing the reality of human’s inability to wrangle, control, and predict nature in its rawest forms. However, Billy seems to work with and understand his surroundings, whereas Jody is still a child, offering a stark contrast in their approaches to their environments. As such, Jody’s interactions with Gabilan demonstrate his belief that a level of order can be maintained over the natural world, while Billy exists in greater harmony with it.

Within this collection, Relationships Between Men and Boys, and the journey from boyhood to manhood in the form of Jody’s Coming of Age, are also explored. The central triangle of male interactions is between Billy, Carl Tiflin, and Jody Tiflin. Carl is the person with the most power in this trio. In addition to employing Billy, Carl is Jody’s “disciplinarian” (138). Everyone else’s lives are negatively impacted when Carl’s feelings are hurt, demonstrating an emotional turbulence that disrupts life on the ranch. For example, when Carl is “angry and hurt, then. He didn’t tell any more stories” (158). Carl is hurt when someone prioritizes a person, or animal, over him. Because Jody is the son of Billy’s boss, Billy has to bend to Jody’s will, too. However, at the beginning of this story, and in “Leader of the People,” Jody idolizes Billy rather than his father. These relationships, and Jody’s two male role models, are complicated by these factors, ebbing and flowing throughout the collection.

Indeed, the moment that Jody loses faith in Billy, the dynamic of the triangle shifts, and Jody grows resentful, which causes Billy to believe he is in Jody’s debt. This develops the theme of Relationships Between Men and Boys. Jody, as a young boy, knows Billy as someone who “kept his word” (148). When Jody gets the red pony, Gabilan, Billy teaches Jody how to train the pony “as he had promised” (156). However, when Billy incorrectly predicts the weather and Gabilan gets sick, Jody’s anger is powerful, and he injures animals on the farm as well as himself. Additionally, Jody doesn’t share important information with Billy once he feels he cannot trust him. This lack of communication, such as the pony getting out of the barn while he was supposed to be keeping watch, ultimately leads to the death of the pony. Jody’s insistence on staying with Gabilan rather than Billy watching over the sick pony also means its certain death.

“The Gift” examines Jody’s Coming of Age. Before he gets the gift of the pony, Jody feels “an uncertainty in the air, a feeling of change and loss and of the gain of new and unfamiliar things” (139). Carl believes caring for a horse will make Jody more responsible and mature. When Jody is 10, at the beginning of “The Gift,” he is not very responsible or caring. He carries around a twenty-two rifle, but Carl will not give him cartridges for it “until he was twelve” (141). He points it at various animals, as well as the ranch house. Jody is aware that his behavior is unacceptable and that he would be punished if his father knew, and he takes advantage of his time out of his father’s sight. Further, Jody’s mistreatment of animals increases over time, demonstrating a desire to control the natural world around him and even punish it when he feels it has failed him. In turn, Jody is afraid that the pony will throw him the first time he tries to ride. While he may understand the natural world as sometimes amoral and therefore violent, he harnesses this in dangerous ways.

When Gabilan becomes ill from the rain, Jody doesn’t fulfill his responsibilities. Twice, Jody “went to sleep” (160) when he was supposed to watch Gabilan, and Gabilan got out of the barn while he was sleeping. This, and Jody’s unwillingness to tell anyone that Gabilan got out, demonstrates that the pony was gifted to him prematurely. He is not ready for the responsibility, highlighting an early point in Jody’s Coming of Age; while the process may have begun, Jody has not yet learned empathy, caution, and community within his environment.