Character Analysis
Alejandra is the novel's resident hot chick. She's the object of John Grady's affections in the novel, and is the daughter of hacendado Don Héctor Rocha y Villareal. In terms of status, she's not the Juliet to John Grady's Romeo. She's more like the Juliet to John Grady's Random Servant Guy #2.
A Distant Yearning
You could be forgiven for thinking that Alejandra seems sort of indistinct as a character—but that's so for a reason. At first, we only see her at a distance, riding by on a beautiful and haughty black Arabian horse, the narrative pace slowing down to describe the scene in extensive detail:
She wore english riding boots and jodhpurs and a blue twill hacking jacket and she carried a ridingcrop and the horse she rode was a black Arabian saddlehorse. She'd been riding the horse in the river [...] because the horse was wet to its belly and the leather fenders of the saddle were dark at their lower edges and her boots as well. She wore a flatcrowned hat of black felt with a wide brim and her black hair was loose under it and fell halfway to her waist and as she rode past she turned and smiled and touched the brim of the hat with her crop and the vaqueros touched their hatbrims one by one down to the last of those who'd pretended not even to see her as she passed. (1430)
The detail of this passage suggests a lingering focus. That, and the way the vaqueros practically bow to her makes her seem almost royal. John Grady's feelings aren't described directly, but the description of his awestruck reaction makes them obvious:
Did you see that little darlin? [Rawlins] asked.
John Grady didnt answer. He was still looking down the road where she'd gone. There was nothing there to see but he was looking anyway. (1432-3)
After she is introduced at the end of the first chapter, we can occasionally glimpse her through John's thoughts or perceptions, but we don't actually get much detail about her except through other people. When she eventually leaves John to keep her bargain with Alfonsa, John's struck by how little about her he actually knows. Her problems with her father and the insecurities written on her face seem to reveal a side of her that he never knew, and was perhaps incapable of knowing all along.
Their communication issues become obvious when they finally part ways:
"He tried to read her heart in her handclasp but he knew nothing." (3493)
When John tells her of his time in prison, their distance only grows, and Alejandra can only ask:
"How do I know who you are? Do I know what sort of man you are? What sort my father is? Do you drink whiskey? Do you go with whores? Does he? What are men?" (3499)
John protests that he told her things he has told no one else, but she simply asks, "What good is it?" (3501). That sense of loneliness, being unable to truly know another, and being exiled in the world is also a major theme a major theme in the novel (see "Exile" under Themes).
Between Freedom and Tradition
We do know that she is daring: despite the cultural traditions that require her to stay away from both men and undignified emotional expressions, she manages to sneak away to have sex with John in his room multiple times, and shows her playful and imperious side where she dares him to take her horse back to the ranch alone while she rides off on his.
But in the end, she abides by her obligations to her grandaunt and leaves John Grady. She wants to break tradition, but stops short when she realizes that her doing so comes at a cost to her relationships with her family. This is true not just with Alfonsa, but also her father, who she says stops loving her after discovering her tryst with John. There are definitely some daddy issues going on here.