No Country For Old Men Essay

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy is a story consisting of two main themes. They are violence and greed. The personality of one of the main characters provides an additional grotesque element as well. Each of these three topics are direct results of each other, the physical violence was a result of the greediness of Moss and the personality of Chigurh determined the amount of physical violence that happened in the story. The first theme in the story is greed. Llewellyn Moss came by several million dollars while he was hunting. Moss stumbled onto the money when he came across a drug deal gone wrong where multiple people died. Moss knew that if he took the money that it could hold consequences to himself and the people close to him. Cormac McCarthy shows that Moss had an idea of what could happen to him if he took the money by saying “Beyond all this was the dead certainty that someone was going to come looking for the money. Maybe several someone’s.” (McCarthy 19). Even while knowing that taking the money could bear consequences, he still decided to take it. In addition to the theme of greed is the theme of violence. The amount of violence in the story was a direct result of Moss being greedy. …show more content…
Chigurh’s personality was one of the main reasons why there was so much violence in the story. Carson Wells said “He’s a peculiar man. You could even say that he has principles. Principles that transcend money or drugs or anything like that.” (McCarthy 153). Wells was telling Moss that what Chigurh was doing wasn’t just for the money and drugs. Chigurh believed what he was doing was for something better than those things; something that justified all of the violence that he inflicted on others. Chigurh didn’t shy away from the effects of what he did to others. McCarthy wrote “Chigurh shot him through the forehead and stood watching. Watching the capillaries break up in his eyes.” (McCarthy