Noble and Haunted: Bell's Moral Heroism in No Country for Old Men Anonymous 12th Grade

Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men follows the story of a drug deal gone wrong. Four Mexican men are found dead at the scene of the crime but the money is nowhere to be found. The novel focuses on Llewelyn Moss, the Texan welder who stumbled upon the crime scene and stole the money, Anton Chigurh, a hit man on the hunt for Moss, and Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, who is investigating it all. Ultimately Moss is killed by Chigurh and Bell ends up knowing even less about the world around him than he did when he began following the case. Bell convinces himself that the best thing to do would be for him to retire as sheriff because he no longer recognizes the world he occupies. Bell is obviously outdated, but he emerges from the story on a higher moral ground than any of the other characters, proving that we should not be ignoring those like Bell and he is more than just “the paltry thing” that he sees himself as.

Bell is from a different generation than any of the other characters in the book. He is not one of the old people that he describes, but he is not of the young new generation that he does not recognize. This is highlighted by the fact that he is the only character in the book that fought in World War II. All of the older...