Please For the Love of God Explain What's Happening and Why
It's certainly been a crazy ride. After a brutal and blood-soaked 309 pages, the novel is finally over. However, this raises the question of what does this all even mean?
First, let's examine the title: No Country for Old Men. The title itself can be considered a major theme for the novel, in which times are changing and the world is getting bleaker and more violent. This is portrayed very well by the Chigurh and Bell. Bell being the older generation(s), Chigurh being the newer generation(s); where Chigurh is violent and hyper-aggressive, possessing no manners and no remorse for his actions, Bell is calm and level-headed, who is always very polite and does things the old-fashioned way (no pun intended). Bell's retirement can also be seen as part of this theme, in which after having dealt with such a macabre case, it is rather fitting that he puts his career out to pasture. After the introduction of this new sort of crime, crime in which parts of it have no reasonable motive, crime that is cold-blooded and calculated, it's reasonable that new methods and new officers are brought aboard.
As we all know, Chigurh is actually out of his mind. Despite this, he does have excellent insight in regards to his bit on how he and his coin had a similar path in order to get to Carla Jean's house. At first glance, it was rather nonsensical. Without further thought, I dismissed what he was saying as ramblings of a madman, high on the endorphin he gets from holding people's lives in the palm of his hand. However, since I am a student in AP Literature, I felt strongly compelled to actually attempt thinking about what his fixation on people's path through life is all about. Something that has really stuck with me is that I find it rather ironic he likes to tell people about this all the time. Two major examples are when he is going to kills Wells, in which he almost teases him about how the rules he lives (well, lived) by got him there (175) and when he is sitting in a chair across from Carla Jean, where he mentions how the coin and his path are the same (258-9). A lot of his commentary actually does carry a lot of weight, however, in that a lot of it relates to another two of the book's main themes: Everything happens for a reason, and every action we ever do is a major choice in our life.
In multiple, differing instances we hear Chigurh spout the same phrase about how nothing goes without reason. To be fair, he is correct. Carla Jean is killed because Moss refused to hand himself and the briefcase over; Chigurh kills almost everyone he meets because he can't leave any trace of himself (although not a solid or moral reason, it's a valid reason from the perspective of a psychopath); Bell retires because he's old, he wants to be with his wife and it's time to make room for a new era of police officers, who will be hard-boiled and (most likely) very trigger happy. Although Chigurh uses everything happening for a reason as justification for why he kills literally everything that moves, it is actually a rather deep and philosophical concept. This is an important part of the book, since a lot of things in the book seem to happen for no reason, (I'm pretty sure I actually comment on how needless Chigurh's constant killings are in one of my posts) it's important to realize that it's not possible for things to happen for no reason, since there can be no reaction without an action.
It may not seem so, but every single decision we ever make is just as important as the last. For example, the fact that I chose to push grocery carts instead of bagging at my job earlier tonight means that I will be considerably more tired than I should be. This itself is nothing short of surprising, however, it could create many, many different situations: I could edit this blog post and miss a lot of errors, I could forget to message my friends back, I could load my dishwasher with clean dishes and put the dirty ones away. Essentially, the important piece is to realize that everything has its own domino effect. This is seen in the novel in which Moss's single choice to take the briefcase full of money causes this absolute havoc of events to happen. Perhaps an even more important, albeit more minute decision, would be how he decided to pick up the hitchhiking girl. Arguably, this caused him to let his guard down and get himself killed. Even more minute is how he decided to leave the hotel room and get a cup. If he didn't do that, there might have been a chance he would have shot the Mexican and not died. All of these decisions made by Moss collectively came together, leading him to his death. To really delve into it though, every decision Moss ever made caused him to die in such a way. Every single little decision and action each character chose to do caused everything to happen. In the words of Chigurh, "All followed to this. The accounting is scrupulous. The shape is drawn. No line can be erased."(259)
First, let's examine the title: No Country for Old Men. The title itself can be considered a major theme for the novel, in which times are changing and the world is getting bleaker and more violent. This is portrayed very well by the Chigurh and Bell. Bell being the older generation(s), Chigurh being the newer generation(s); where Chigurh is violent and hyper-aggressive, possessing no manners and no remorse for his actions, Bell is calm and level-headed, who is always very polite and does things the old-fashioned way (no pun intended). Bell's retirement can also be seen as part of this theme, in which after having dealt with such a macabre case, it is rather fitting that he puts his career out to pasture. After the introduction of this new sort of crime, crime in which parts of it have no reasonable motive, crime that is cold-blooded and calculated, it's reasonable that new methods and new officers are brought aboard.
As we all know, Chigurh is actually out of his mind. Despite this, he does have excellent insight in regards to his bit on how he and his coin had a similar path in order to get to Carla Jean's house. At first glance, it was rather nonsensical. Without further thought, I dismissed what he was saying as ramblings of a madman, high on the endorphin he gets from holding people's lives in the palm of his hand. However, since I am a student in AP Literature, I felt strongly compelled to actually attempt thinking about what his fixation on people's path through life is all about. Something that has really stuck with me is that I find it rather ironic he likes to tell people about this all the time. Two major examples are when he is going to kills Wells, in which he almost teases him about how the rules he lives (well, lived) by got him there (175) and when he is sitting in a chair across from Carla Jean, where he mentions how the coin and his path are the same (258-9). A lot of his commentary actually does carry a lot of weight, however, in that a lot of it relates to another two of the book's main themes: Everything happens for a reason, and every action we ever do is a major choice in our life.
In multiple, differing instances we hear Chigurh spout the same phrase about how nothing goes without reason. To be fair, he is correct. Carla Jean is killed because Moss refused to hand himself and the briefcase over; Chigurh kills almost everyone he meets because he can't leave any trace of himself (although not a solid or moral reason, it's a valid reason from the perspective of a psychopath); Bell retires because he's old, he wants to be with his wife and it's time to make room for a new era of police officers, who will be hard-boiled and (most likely) very trigger happy. Although Chigurh uses everything happening for a reason as justification for why he kills literally everything that moves, it is actually a rather deep and philosophical concept. This is an important part of the book, since a lot of things in the book seem to happen for no reason, (I'm pretty sure I actually comment on how needless Chigurh's constant killings are in one of my posts) it's important to realize that it's not possible for things to happen for no reason, since there can be no reaction without an action.
It may not seem so, but every single decision we ever make is just as important as the last. For example, the fact that I chose to push grocery carts instead of bagging at my job earlier tonight means that I will be considerably more tired than I should be. This itself is nothing short of surprising, however, it could create many, many different situations: I could edit this blog post and miss a lot of errors, I could forget to message my friends back, I could load my dishwasher with clean dishes and put the dirty ones away. Essentially, the important piece is to realize that everything has its own domino effect. This is seen in the novel in which Moss's single choice to take the briefcase full of money causes this absolute havoc of events to happen. Perhaps an even more important, albeit more minute decision, would be how he decided to pick up the hitchhiking girl. Arguably, this caused him to let his guard down and get himself killed. Even more minute is how he decided to leave the hotel room and get a cup. If he didn't do that, there might have been a chance he would have shot the Mexican and not died. All of these decisions made by Moss collectively came together, leading him to his death. To really delve into it though, every decision Moss ever made caused him to die in such a way. Every single little decision and action each character chose to do caused everything to happen. In the words of Chigurh, "All followed to this. The accounting is scrupulous. The shape is drawn. No line can be erased."(259)
In spite of the fact that the style of our fourth blog posts (yours more analytical than my own that instead centered around my reaction to the book's end) I think that we still managed to come to many of the same conclusions. For instance, we were both able to recognize the fact that the deaths of many of the book's main characters like Carla Jean were directly caused by Moss' decision to take the briefcase full of money as well as the significance of the coin that Chigurh uses to determine the fates of these same characters. Therefore, I was glad to see that we share understandings of many aspects of the book and its meaning.
ReplyDeleteI also greatly appreciate that you were willing to analyze the deeper meaning of McCarthy's writing in this post. After all, while I had come to the conclusion that McCarthy is using Moss' story to demonstrate how he feels society has changed in recent decades based on my own original thinking it would nonetheless be a lie for me to claim that your writing has not enriched my understanding of this conclusion.
A good discussion of thematic ideas. You trace them well throughout the novel, and the connection yo your own life is interesting and amusing. Do you think that there's a sense of fairness in it? That we make decisions without always realizing the impact of our decisions (and can't know the impact of all of our decisions)?
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