Drugs, Money and Blood Spurts - Oh My!

The first few pages of No Country for Old Men is certainly a wild ride. Like any good book, we receive a lot of information about the novel. First, we are introduced to a man named Chigurh. We receive very little information about what he looks like, and more importantly any sort of real description of him is through his actions. This is a concept that seems to be heavily employed throughout the novel, in that a characters actions are their descriptors; more on that in a different post, however. Chigurh, aside from having murderous tendencies, appears to be some sort of multi-purpose, killer for hire. We come to understand this based on how he tends to murder almost everyone he crosses paths with, and how the Mexicans hire him to track the briefcase full of money that was left at the failed drug deal. We have little to no physical description of him so far, however, based on what he says and does it is easy to see that he is a very cold and detached person. The gang/cartel/drugrunners (we aren’t necessarily told what the group of Mexicans who were involved with the failed drug deal are, as of page 83) hired Chigurh with the intention of having him track down the case of money that the one of the other main characters, Moss, stole.

Llewelyn Moss is a very estranged character, in that he tends to be reserved and secretive - even when speaking to his own wife. A lot of his dialogue thus far is mostly him thinking to himself, which can be deduced to mean he is very self reliant and a quick thinker. This is mainly displayed when he is being chased by some of the Mexicans when he goes to put the suitcase of money back. We also learn he has some military experience, or at least some sort of hobby/job involved with weapons, based on how well he knows ammunition and guns. This is something that is displayed right off the bat when we are introduced to him, in which he knows exactly where the bullet will land depending on the distance between him and his target. Llewellyn doesn’t seem to have any particular reason to steal the briefcase full of money except for two possibilities: his own greed or that he and his wife are considerably poor (based on the fact that they live in a trailer.)

In the novel so far, there are three main characters. They can be organized into a sort of number line, except the line does not measure numbers but rather morality. In the dead middle is Moss, as he seems to be a honest man, but he makes rather questionable decisions (i.e. taking the briefcase, taking guns). On the far right side of the scale, we have Chigurh, who is rather lacking when it comes to morals. A relentless, cold-blooded killer who seems to have absolutely no remorse. On the far left of the scale though, we have the character known as Sheriff Bell. He is a man of moral upstanding (at least thus far) and seems to take pride in what he does as a policeman, based on how his father was also a member of the police force. Since this seems to run in the family and how he is rather old (based on his dialogue in which he talks about how he’s never had to deal with people “like this”, referring to the multiple murders Chigurh commits), it can be assumed he is also good at what he does.