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Ed Tom Bell is the sheriff of Terrell Country, Texas. He is a man of faith who values morality but finds it difficult to effectively do his job as he struggles to adapt to the changing world where violence and corruption have become an everyday occurrence. In his monologues at the start of each chapter, he compares the current world to the world he knew when he was younger. When he meets the young prisoner on death row, he was confused as to how such a young man could have no soul. “They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. I don’t know what them eyes was the windows to and I guess I’d as soon not know. But there is another view of the world out there and other eyes to see it and that’s where this is goin” (McCarthy 2). When he sees the young man, he is uncertain about the future of the world. As time passes, violence is being done by criminals who are younger and more corrupt. He’s starting to realize the direction the new generation is going to and feels he is too old to keep up. Although he feels this way, he still wants to help protect the people of his community. He goes to great lengths to protect Moss and Carla Jean and put Chigurh behind bars. But by the end of the novel, he realizes he is powerless over the new forces of evil in the world and retires from his job.

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Llewelyn Moss is a Vietnam veteran who starts off his story by stumbling upon a drug deal gone wrong. Moss is empathetic but also selfish. Moss tries to be a good man, but he also makes some mistakes by giving into his temptations. He tries to help the dying drug dealer by speaking broken Spanish and giving him water, but then he steals a briefcase with $10,000. “He sat there looking at it and then he closed the flap and sat with his head down. His whole life was sitting there in front of him” (McCarthy 8). Moss is a working class man who knows there are many dangers to come with stealing the briefcase, but the temptation of a better life outweighs the risks. Because his objectives are freedom and moving onto a new life, he refuses to cooperate with Chigurh and give him the briefcase even though he offered to spare his wife’s life in exchange for the money. Moss believes he can overcome Chigurh, but his mistake leads to his and Carla Jean’s death.

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Anton Chigurh is an immoral psychopath. He pulls over a random man, just to kill him and steal his car. Then he gets mad because he didn’t want to get blood on the car. “The man slid soundlessly to the ground, a round hole in his forehead from which the blood bubbled and ran down into his eyes carrying with it his slowly uncoupling world visible to see. Chigurh wiped his hand with his handkerchief. I just didn’t want you to get blood on the car, he said.” (McCarthy 3). We would expect our “bad guy” to be organized and have a direct plan, but Chigurh is reckless and random and puts his victim’s lives in the fate of objects. For example, he went to a gas station and asked the cashier to pick a side in a coin toss, not letting him know that he would be betting his life. After choosing the correct side, Chigurh left the gas station. Sadly this was not the case for Carla Jean, Moss’ wife, as she chose the wrong side of the coin and Chigurh killed her. While he was getting away, he got into a car accident and injured himself. This accident is ironic because although he views himself as a god of fate, he is also subject to fate as well.

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Fate is when an event or series of events was destined to happen. Fate is inevitable and everyone is susceptible to it. Many important events can simply be decided by chance or fate. This is expressed multiple times throughout No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy, from beginning to end. In the first chapter, we meet Llewellyn Moss who is an ordinary working-class man. He sets out across the desert to witness a drug deal gone wrong. While following a trail of blood, he discovers a leather suitcase filled with money. This money can change his life for the better, leading him to think about where he has come from and where he is heading. Moss finding the briefcase was simply by chance. It’s not every day where you can travel through a desert to find a briefcase full of money that can give you a better life. We see that fate is a recurring theme in objects, like the coin Chigurh uses. Chigurh asks his victims to pick a side of a coin that will determine if they live or die. His first victim at the gas station chose the correct side and lived, but his second victim, Carla Jean, chose the incorrect side and he killed her. Before she died, she told him he didn’t have to kill her. He responded telling her she didn’t do anything, and it was just bad luck. Although Chigurh believes he is the god of fate, he is also susceptible to it. While he was trying to get away, he gets into a car accident, limps off, and never comes back. Everyone is subject to fate, whether they like it or not.

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In Western stories and films, there are many story and character tropes that we expect to see before reading/watching because they all have similar stories. No Country for Old Men is an inversion because it completely goes against some of the typical Western tropes. For starters, we expect the good guy to be a loner who is 100% moral and to always make good choices. Moss, our protagonist, is amoral and makes both good and bad decisions. He steals the money at the start of the book, but he also went back and giving the dying man water. We also expect the “good guy” to live till the end and save the day, but in No Country for Old Men, Moss is killed off-the-page in the middle of the novel. We expect the “bad guy” to be organized and have direct, but Chigurh randomly kills people, sometimes based on a coin flip, and claims it was their fate. It is expected for him to be defeated by the hero and taken to jail by the sheriff, but Chigurh gets in a car accident off-the-page, limps off, and never returns. I think Cormac McCarthy included these inversions because they were unexpected and we weren’t able to predict the events that would happen next.

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No Country For Old Men’s title is a clear clue that can help us figure out the true meaning of the story. Bell feels that he is no longer useful to his job as he has gotten older and criminals have gotten younger, smarter, and more dangerous. The book brings awareness to the violence happening in America. Even though time passes, violence continues. By inverting typical Western tropes, Cormac McCarthy wanted to express that anyone could inflict violence in America. In the Western genre, criminals are usually outsiders who are either Mexican or Native American. However, Chigurh isn’t explicitly said to be a Mexican. Throughout the novel, we didn’t know what ethnicity Chigurh was, so we were left to believe that anyone of any race or ethnicity could inflict such violence. McCarthy also uses chance and fate as an ongoing theme throughout the novel. He wanted to show how life forces us to make decisions, but we can never predict the outcome because chance is a factor that cannot be accounted for. Time and fate are inevitable, and we are all bound to be affected by both.