No Country for Old Men: Analysis of Major Characters

Author: Cormac McCarthy

First published: 2005

Genre: Novel

Locale: Texas and Mexico

Plot: Crime drama

Time: 1980

Llewelyn Moss, is a 36-year-old welder from San Saba, Texas. While out hunting, he accidentally discovers the remains of a drug deal gone bad resulting in a shootout in which several men are killed outright and others mortally wounded. In the two respective vehicles on the scene Moss finds a load of Mexican heroin and roughly $2.4 million in cash in a briefcase. He also finds numerous semi- and full-automatic weapons. Although he is carrying a .270 hunting rifle, Moss takes a H&K submachine gun with additional magazines and a .45 Colt army automatic pistol. Moss also takes the cash-laden briefcase but leaves the heroin at the crime scene. Moss does not know that there is a tracking device hidden in the briefcase, which will lead the money's owners directly to it. Moss is a U.S. Army veteran who served three tours in Vietnam with the 12th Infantry Battalion between 1966 and 1968. He is married to a 19-year-old woman named Carla Jean. After absconding with the illegal money, Moss travels by bus, taxis, and a pickup truck, which he buys, to numerous motels and other locations heading toward Mexico, which he enters illegally after being shot by Anton Chigurh, a hired killer sent to retrieve the money. Although Moss survives the initial encounter with Chigurh in a Texas hotel near the Mexican border, another gunman later finds Moss in a different Texas hotel and kills him, along with a 15-year-old female hitchhiker he is travelling with.

Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, is the veteran sheriff of Terrell County, Texas. He and his wife, Loretta, have been married for 31 years but have no children, although Loretta miscarried a girl. They each own a horse (Loretta's is named Winston). Bell is very much like an Old West sheriff—he is simple, honest, dedicated, and reliable. He trusts sure things and drives an older police cruiser sporting a high-output 454 engine, carries a vintage Colt .44–40 single action pistol, and keeps lever-action Winchester rifles in his horse trailer. He is a decorated veteran of World War II but has never killed anyone during his tenure in law enforcement. He often remembers how he was afraid of dying when serving in combat and ran from his position, leaving his fellow soldiers behind. He is afraid of being killed by Anton Chigurh. He confesses his fears to his Uncle Ellis, a former sheriff.

Anton Chigurh, is a hired killer pursuing Llewelyn Moss. He has been employed by the Matacumbe Petroleum Group to retrieve the money Moss stole after accidentally stumbling across the scene of a shootout between drug dealers. Chigurh is in his mid-30s. He is remorseless, brutal, thorough, and smart. He often employs a cattle gun—a handheld pneumatic device that plunges a bolt forward with great force driven by a tank of compressed air—to both pierce skulls like a bullet and to knock the cylinders out of door locks to gain entrance. He also favors a silenced pistol and a silenced Remington shotgun. Chigurh believes in fate and luck; he sometimes decides if he will kill certain characters by flipping a coin and allowing the potential victim to call heads or tails—if the person is right, Chigurh allows them to live. He is wounded by Moss in a shootout during their initial confrontation in a Texas hotel near the Mexican border. Chigurh later kills Carson Wells, a former associate who also has been sent to retrieve the missing money. Chigurh eventually is injured badly in a random car accident (fate or bad luck) immediately after killing Moss's wife, Carla Jean, when she returns from her grandmother's funeral. Immediately after the accident in which his arm is broken in two places (the bone is visible through his skin) and he suffers deep lacerations to his head, Chigurh pays a boy named David DeMarco $100 for his T-shirt to use as a tourniquet for his shattered arm. Whether he dies of his injuries following the accident is unstated. He is symbolic of death.

Carson Wells, is an ex–Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel turned hired gun. Like Anton Chigurh, who he has encountered on previous assignments, Wells has been sent to track down Llewelyn Moss and retrieve the drug-deal money that Moss took after the drug sellers and buyers killed each other. Wells visits Moss in a Mexican hospital, where he asks for the money's return and warns him about Chigurh. Wells is killed by Chigurh, who shoots him in the hand and face in a hotel room while Wells is attempting to cut a deal with him regarding the money.

Ellis, is Sheriff Bell's uncle. Bell visits him and they speak about family long dead. Ellis is a retired sheriff who, like his nephew, also has faced dangerous criminals.

Hitchhiker, is a 15-year-old girl who Llewelyn Moss gives a ride in his truck. Her name isn't divulged. She is heading to California and Moss gives her $1000 to get herself settled once she arrives. He buys her meals and pays for her hotel room as they travel. The girl is chatty and asks Moss questions about himself, which he only half answers. She is killed along with Moss in a motel by a Mexican gunman sent to track down the money.

Wendell and Torbert, are Terrell County, Texas deputy sheriffs working under Sheriff Ed Tom Bell.