Literary Devices, Themes, And Violence In 'No Country For Old Men'

In the novel How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster, discusses in depth literary devices and their meanings. After reading Fosters novel and going on to reading No Country for Old men by Cormac McCarthy the main literary devices and themes conveyed were, geography, Christ figures, and violence. McCarthy uses these devices and themes to attract the reader to think about the book on a deeper level. In the novel No Country for Old Men the geography sets the tone for many scenes. The novel shows the West as a lawless place were evil and demise are superior rather than the stereotypical intrepid, second chancing West. Llewellyn Moss, a welder and Vietnam veteran, is a very ambitious, confident and prideful man. When he first discovers the accident in the desert author McCarthy puts emphasis on …show more content…
McCarthy set the theme to violence right out of the gate with the very first sentence “I sent one boy to the gas chamber at Huntsville.” [McCarthy 3]. McCarthy wants to get his point across of the struggle between good and evil. In Foster’s How to Read Literature like a Professor he says “ It’s nearly impossible to generalize about the meanings of violence, except that there are typically more than one, and its range of possibilities is far larger than with something like rain or snow.” McCarthy uses all forms of violence in his novel included that of snow, “the falling snow drifted and turned in the warm, yellow light.’’ [McCarthy 136] The snow in this quote represents the vastness of death, snow blankets everything and so does death. McCarthy also uses violence in a very blunt manor “Yes, she said, sobbing. I do. I truly do. Good he said. That’s good. Then he shot her” [McCarthy 260] he uses this to reemphasize the power evil can have on someone. He draws the reader in giving them hope that good will shine through only to shoot them down and show how powerful evil really