No Country for Old Men
Cormac McCarthy
Characters in No Country for Old Men
I recently finished reading Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men. There were many characters with different traits. I think two of the most interesting characters were Anton Chigurh and Llewelyn Moss. They were the most interactive with each other and I think they were the two most important.
Anton Chigurh is a crazy psychopath killer who is basically ruthless towards all human life. He doesn't care about anyone he kills and he thinks nothing of it. He was hired by some Americans to go on a man hunt for drug money, but when Chigurh found out he could make tons of money out of this drug deal and kill someone for pleasure he decided to kill the Americans that hired him. This proves that not only is Chigurh a savage but you can’t trust him either. Speaking about how Chigurh is crazy, he also tosses a coin to decide weather or not he’s going to kill someone and watches the person beg for their life first. Either way they are most likely going to die because Chigurh has a mind of his own. There is literally nothing likeable about Chigurhs personality, although I really liked his character because he was explained so well and made the story that more interesting. I thought Chirgruh was scary and crazy and that’s what made the character fit so well into this book. McCarthy made Chigurh seem so real in this book, to me I found I was scared even thinking about just encountering someone like this in my life! Anton Chigurh is a very frightening man with nothing good about him at all. He is the definition of evil to me.
Unlike Llewelyn Moss who has some flaws but in general is a decent person. He has a lot of self-confidence which could sometimes get him into trouble. Before Moss found the money in the desert he found someone who was dying and just wanted a drink of water, Moss declines him of water and leaves him to die. Sometimes Moss could be very inconsiderate in this novel. Moss also had a lot of curiosity, he could have just left the drug money in the desert knowing it was bad and going to get him into trouble but, his curiosity got the best of him so he took it. He has a very loving wife, who would do anything for him and believes everything he says, which I think she shouldn’t because she believed every single lie he told her which got her life in danger and also got her killed actually. Those are just a few of the bad characteristics about Moss, he actually really loved Carla (his girlfriend) and had so much regret, remorse and guilt after she was killed. He knew it was his fault, he could have saved her if he would have just given Chigruh the drug money but instead he was greedy. Moss was a nice guy but just made the wrong choices at times and it was hard for him not to take the money. Carla and Moss had a good relationship actually, they loved each other very much but now they can’t be together because of Moss’s bad decisions and lying.
All in all the characters in the story were very realistic to me, and when I would read it I felt like I knew the characters. Chirgruh is crazy and Moss just made bad decisions. They were both rebels a little bit if you ask me. I really enjoyed this novel and thought it was great.