Essay About Ideas in No Country for Old Men

No Country for old men is an intense western novel set in the 1980’s that was written by the critically acclaimed writer Cormac McCarthy. Let me preface this, this book is a heavy read! It follows a poor welder who lives in the barren desert of southwestern Texas, named Llewelyn Moss.  One night while on a leisurely drive he comes across a drug deal gone wrong and a huge sum of cash. Llewelyn impulsively takes the cash and has now angered both the Mexican Cartel and a bloodthirsty psychopathic killer named Anton Chigurh. The rapid success of the book quickly warranted a movie adaptation only two years after the release of the novel. The movie has been met with very high praise since its release in 2007 and won an impressive 77 awards.  This novel also has some very powerful ideas such as the idea of a psychopath, one's morality, as well as greed.

The first idea that I feel this novel raises is the idea of greed and one’s morality. As I briefly mentioned in the intro, our protagonist Llewelyn Moss comes across a drug deal gone wrong, while scouting the gory crime scene he comes across a suitcase holding one million in cash, with no one else around our protagonist gives in to his greed and instinctively takes the money. Unbeknownst to him in the moment, the second he grabbed the case full of money is when he practically signed his life away.  A quote that I think shows Llewelyn's greed is “He sat there looking at the money and then he closed the flap and sat with his head down. His whole life was sitting there in front of him. Day after day from dawn till dark until he was dead. All of it cooked down into forty pounds of paper in a satchel.” This made me question if Llewellyn felt any remorse for taking the money, he is already thinking about all the things he can do with the money and how he’s going to use it instead of the consequences that are undoubtedly coming his way. This made me question my own morality and what most would do in the difficult situation Llewellyn put himself into. A second quote that I feel represents this theme is “I guess in all honesty I would have to say that I never knew, nor did I ever hear of anybody that money didn’t change.” This second quote is said by Sheriff Tom Bell while speaking to Carla-Jean Moss about her husband Llewellyn.  This quote further cements the popular idea that money changes people. It's gotten to the point where even Llewelyn’s own wife has noticed changes in her husband’s odd behaviour as of recent. Llewellyn went from a humble, law-abiding man to a greedy man who will do absolutely anything to protect the suitcase of dirty money that he found.  

The second idea that this novel conveyed to me was the idea of an actual psychopath. This particular theme was shown through the form of our terrifying antagonist Anton Chigurh. Anton is a rogue serial killer that lacks any bit of sympathy to other human beings. His choice of weapon in the novel is a bolt gun which he uses to claim many of his victims. This weapon choice tells you quite a bit about Anton, bolt guns are used as a way of quickly killing livestock by farmers as to kill the animal instantly and to stop any suffering that may have been caused otherwise. Anton using the bolt gun instead of a traditional gun could be linked to him viewing other humans as animals and as generally being inferior to him. Chigurh clearly shows many tendencies of a psychopath such as manipulating and hurting others, recurring problems with the law, and the tendency to lie. Another inexcusable action often done by Chigurh is his infamous “coin toss” which is where he puts someone’s life down to a literal coin toss by making them pick a side and killing them if the odds don't go their way. This truly shows how little to no remorse Chigurh shows towards humanity as with this method he puts the victim's life down to a simple game where he gives the victim the choice. A quote that highlights Anton’s use of the coin is “Anything can be an instrument, Chigurh said. Small things. Things you wouldn’t even notice. They pass from hand to hand. People don’t pay attention. And then one day there is accounting. And after that nothing is the same...you see the problem. To separate the act from the thing. As if parts of some moment in history might be interchangeable with parts of some other moment. How could that be? Well, it’s just a coin. Yes. That’s true. Is it?” I interpreted this quote as Anton justifying his actions in any which way he could, he doesn’t view himself as the person who decides whether the victim lives or dies but just the executioner who is following the coins orders.

In conclusion I really enjoyed this novel and the themes that it shared with me such as the idea of a psychopath and one's own morality. After reading this novel and finding out there was a film adaptation I didn’t hesitate and watched it within the same night, I loved the movie and I was glad to see that the general consensus was that it was an amazing film. The character of Anton Chigurh was disturbingly fascinating, and I was not surprised to find out that the character of Anton Chigurh is voted by many as the most realistic psychopath portrayed in media the film adaptation of Anton Chigurh portrayed by Javier Bardem was voted the truest portrayal of a real psychopath in film. So yeah, If you ever get the chance, I most certainly recommend both the novel and the film as they’ve both gone down as some of my favorites that I've had the chance to read/watch.