Isaiah Arredondo
GOVT 2306
Book Review
October 20, 2018
No Country for Old Men
The central plot of the No Country for Old Men follows three main characters, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, Hunter Llewelyn Moss, and hitman Anton Chigurh, and how their stories are related over the course of a series of highly disturbing and violent events. No Country for old Men begins Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, the story’s protagonist, detailing an experience from his time as a Sheriff. He reminisces on a time of a man who is now being put to death for killing a 14 year old girl, it was described as a ‘crime of passion’ he told Bell there was no passion involved. Bell realizes that his worldview is dated, and likely fundamentally different from that of others near the Mexican American border in 1980.
Concurrently, Llewelyn Moss stumbles upon the grisly aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong while out hunting. While surveying the area, Moss comes across a badly wounded survivor, who begs him for water. Moss doesn't have water so he cant give him any. After investigating further, Moss discovers a truck filled with heroin and decides to go off and look for the “Last Man Standing”. He finds him, dead under a tree some ways away from the scene, clutching a satchel filled will $2.4 million in cash. Moss takes the satchel and returns home to his trailer, but feels significant remorse at having left the Mexican to die, and returns later that night with a jug of water. Upon arriving, he finds that the Mexican has since been shot and killed, and it’s not long after that that a second truck pulls up beside Moss’s, leading to a tense chase through the desert. Moss manages to escape, and returns home to tell his wife, Carla Jean, to take her mother and go to Odessa, Texas while he escapes with the money.
Sheriff Bell is called in to investigate the drug crime and protect Moss and Carla Jean. Bell is haunted by his experiences as a soldier during WWII, where he left his unit to die and received a Bronze Star in the aftermath. Bell has spent his life attempting to atone for that crime of cowerdice, and resolves to crack the case and save the Mosses lives in the process. Of course, things are never that simple, and hitman Anton Chigurh soon arrives on the scene. Chigurh was hired to retrieve the money, and with his silenced shotgun and “stungun” (captive bolt pistol) at his side, he hunts Moss and the money will a relentless ferocity. Also hot on the trial is ex-special forces officer and rival hitman Carson Wells, who is familiar with Chigurh and the kind of carnage he can inflict when he sets his mind to it. After a shoot out on the border that leaves both Moss and Chigurh badly wounded, Moss is discovered and sent to recover in a hospital in Mexico, while Chigurh steals medical supplies to patch himself up.
During his time in the hospital, Moss is approached by Carson Wells, who offers to protect him in exchange for the money. Moss turns him down, but Wells leave his contact information with him, telling Moss to “Call him when he’s had enough”. When Chigurh recovers from his wounds, he quickly tracks down Wells and murders him shortly before Moss calls to negotiate the exchange of the money. Chigurh answers the phone, and tells Moss that he will kill Carla Jean if he fails to hand over the cash. Moss refuses, and quickly calls Carla Jean to tell her to meet him in a motel in El Paso. Carla Jean deliberates for a while on whether or not to tell Sheriff Bell, but she eventually does and the call is traced by several of the hunters looking for Moss.
When he arrives at the motel, Sheriff Bell finds a massacre. Moss has been murdered by a group of Mexicans prior to his arrival. Chigurh arrives later that night, retrieves the satchel from where Moss had hidden it in the motel, and returns it to its owner. Later, he travels to Carla Jeans house to settle some unfinished business. He flips a coin to decide her fate, and after shooting her, is struck by a car. Chigurh survives, and after bribing two teenagers to forget they ever saw him, limps down the road, completely eluding the authorities for a clean getaway.
After a lengthy but fruitless investigation, Bell relents and retires, leaving the case feeling defeated. Afterwards, Bell recalls two dreams: one where he asked to borrow money from his father, and one where they were riding horses through snowy mountains. In the second dream, Bell’s father rides ahead, carrying a white horn filled with fire into the darkness. Bell take this as a sign that he is an old man now, and the country in which he lives is truly no country for old men.
but they are not. Horses are now cars and trucks, the cattle being brought in the country are now drugs, and the killings are now done with advanced weaponry instead of a revolver. The
The events take place not far from The USA-Mexican border, in Terrel Country, Texas. The precise time is the 1980s. The plot is based on the investigation of murders and loss of money. Llewelyn Moss, the hunter, who finds the money and pockets it, has to run away in order to save his life and keep the money, for there are many criminals, who would do anything possible to return the loss. For instance, Anton Chigurh is one of them. He follows Llewelyn everywhere with an intention to kill him. Sheriff Ed Tom Bell ties to solve the crime.
A bolt gun is a device used during the slaughtering process. The bolt gun uses air pressure to knock unconscious an animal that is supposed to be killed. In some instances, the bolt gun can also damage the animal’s brain, killing it. In the novel, the killer named Chigurh uses a bolt gun to kill his victims. The gun is also symbolic because it implies that the killer does not see his victims as being human beings but rather that he sees them as only animals.
In the third chapter, when Bell talks about his job as a sheriff, he also thinks about how sheriffs were perceived in the past and how their situation changed drastically in the present. Bell notes that in the past, sheriffs were seen like Gods, obeyed and respected. The comparison has the purpose of showing just how the job a sheriff did was considered as being a respectable job while also making reference to the responsibilities a sheriff had. Because sheriffs were allowed to carry guns, they could inflict death and they could kill people without being questions about their motives.
Sheriff Ed Tom Bell is the protagonist of the story. He is a World War II veteran, who dedicates his life to protection of the law and order. Unfortunately, he fails to solve those crimes, for Anton Chigurh and other criminals represent that kind of evil, which Bell is unable to understand. He feels that he is useless, that there is no place for an old man like him in this new world of unreasonable cruelty.
Llewelyn Moss is one of the main characters of the story. He was going to hunt antelopes, when he found several shot up vehicles in the desert. The people in the cars were dead, save one. The wounded man asked Moss for water and since he had no water, Llewelyn started looking for it in the cars. He found money – precisely two millions – instead of water. He couldn’t resist a temptation, so he took them.
Anton Chigurh is one of the main characters of the novel. The man is a cold-blooded person, who doesn’t even hesitate before killing anyone. He is definitely not a usual criminal, for he is not too much interested in money, his only one passion is killing. It is mentioned that his eyes are absolutely emotionless, therefore Anton is soulless.