No Country for Old Men

Bell constantly extolls the goodness of his wife, beloved by the prisoners that she feeds and talks to as they reside in the county jail. Many ex-prisoners bring their wives and children to see her and demonstrate to her that their lives have straightened out. She is kind and generous. Because of her goodness and his desire to appear in the best light to her, Bell protects her from his innermost thoughts and fears, which he only reveals to the reader in the opening chapter monologues.

In her conversations with Bell, it is clear that Loretta offers him a sounding-board, without offering him advice—just her opinion, if she has one. Mostly, she just reflects back to him what he already knows. As the only overtly religious character, Loretta finds quiet comfort, guidance, and solace in the Bible. She is a believer—in Jesus Christ and in her husband—not a judge. This ability to not sit in judgment of others means that both prisoners and her husband alike respect and admire her, but it also means that she does not confront her husband or try to guide him. When he needs someone to keep him on the right road, he is on his own.

Thirty-six years old, Llewellyn Moss works as a welder and hunts as a hobby. A Vietnam veteran, he spent the war as a sniper. Wily, smart, and hardened by his war experience, Moss believes that he is capable of outwitting and outrunning the drug dealers who are sure to come after him to retrieve their money. He is one of the main narrators of the novel, and its secondary protagonist.

Moss’ confidence is not entirely misplaced, but as a generally law-abiding man, he cannot conceive the level of determination and malevolence he is up against. Pursued by a psychopath, two competing drug gangs, and Sheriff Bell, Moss can only stay ahead of his hunters for so long.

Moss’s sections contain many instances foreshadowing of his death, including the opening scene when he is hunting the antelope: “The rocks there were etched with pictographs perhaps a thousand years old. The men who drew them hunters like himself. Of them there was no other trace” (11). Through Moss, McCarthy depicts the hubris of an ordinary, decent man defeated by immoral forces he never dreamed existed.

Moss’ mistake costs him his own life, and it also puts his wife, Carla Jean, in danger. His relationship with Carla Jean is solid, and they share a witty, sarcastic, humorous banter that covers their deeper feelings for each other.

Smart and mature beyond her years, nineteen-year-old Carla Jean Moss married Llewelyn Moss at sixteen. She trusts him absolutely and believes in him and his abilities. She also patiently takes care of her difficult, outspoken mother as she is dying from cancer. She experiences two great blows within a few weeks: the deaths of her husband and her mother. Despite these blows, Carla Jean manages to deal with her grief; she wants to live.

Like Moss, she never imagined that the world contains a man like Anton Chigurh. Her death creates the climax of the novel. She confronts Chigurh, daring to tell him that his philosophy is crazy: he and he alone chooses whether or not to kill, not some element of fate.

A psychopath with a fatalistic philosophy, Anton Chigurh wreaks havoc and destruction on the lives of nearly every person whom he meets. His philosophy that every person’s fate is decided by their own decisions and actions, but is, at the same time, predetermined, falls apart under scrutiny. In particular, when confronting Carson Wells and Carla Jean Moss, he desires their permission and acquiescence before he kills them. His philosophy is a way of denying personal responsibility for his actions and elevates him, in his own mind, into an instrument of Fate, rather than what he is: a malicious, megalomaniacal killer, devoid of a soul or any humanity.

His car accident, as he leaves the scene of Carla Jean’s murder, indicates that he cannot operate completely free of consequence or fate. Ironically, he is hit by a car driven by a group of Mexican youths high on drugs. When the novel ends, he is still at large in the world, but severely wounded by his car accident.