No Country for Old Men Essay Questions

What is a bolt gun, and why it is significant that Chigurh decided to kill his victims with it instead of killing them with a regular gun?

A bolt gun is a device used to slaughter livestock. The bolt gun uses air pressure to knock an animal unconscious before it is killed. In some instances, the bolt gun can also damage the animal’s brain, killing it. By not expending bullets, it leaves no trace. It only requires compressed air. In the novel, the killer Anton Chigurh uses a bolt gun to kill his victims. The gun is significant because it demonstrates how Chigurh does not see his victims as being human beings but rather as animals, destined for slaughter.

Ed Tom Bell fought in WWII, where he abandoned his unit and won a Bronze Star. Llewelyn Moss was a sniper in the Vietnam War. How does the novel compare WWII and the Vietnam War, and what is the overall impression of how each of these wars impacted veterans differently?

McCarthy shows the generational differences between those who fought and came of age during World War II and those who fought and came of age during the Vietnam War. During WWII, U.S. soldiers had the overwhelming support of Americans at home, which made their reintegration to society a much more positive experience, generally, than the experience of veterans of the Vietnam War. Because of a number of cultural shifts and the introduction of television news cameras to the battlefield that broadcast and reported the events of the Vietnam War to the American public as they happened, there was a sweeping movement to protest the war at home. Protesters believed that the U.S. had no compelling cause to be waging war in Vietnam. There were also reports of atrocities and war crimes being committed by some U.S. soldiers in Vietnam, which stirred a negative attitude toward returning veterans. Vietnam vets were spit on and chastized in the streets upon their return. The difference between the experiences of WWII and Vietnam vets is most directly delineated when Sheriff Bell visits Llewelyn's father after Llewelyn dies. Llewelyn's father doesn't believe that the biggest issue for Vietnam vets was the lack of support at home, but rather a general shift towards atheism and the loss of religion in the U.S. He says, "We didnt have nothin to give to em to take over there. If we’d sent em without rifles I dont know as they’d of been all that much worse off. You cant go to war like that. You cant go to war without God. I dont know what is goin to happen when the next one comes. I surely dont" (295). Mr. Moss's perspective mirrors Ed Tom's perspective about the trend towards a "new kind of evil" and a loss of moral compass in the latter half of the twentieth century.

Compare and contrast Ed Tom and Loretta's relationship to Carla Jean and Llewelyn's.

Ed Tom Bell constantly refers to his wife as a source of salvation. At one point he says of Loretta, "She’s a better person than me, which I will admit to anybody that cares to listen. Not that that’s sayin a whole lot. She’s a better person than anybody I know. Period" (90-91). Bell operates under the impression that people of the new generation don't keep as much stock in the institution of marriage as he and his generation, but his meeting with Carla Jean in Odessa challenges that notion. He asks her age, and she self-consciously admits to being only nineteen because she suspects that Bell will patronize her for her youth. Instead he says, "My wife was eighteen when we married. Just had turned. Marryin her makes up for ever dumb thing I ever done. I even think I still got a few left in the account. I think I’m way in the black on that" (133). Carla Jean surprises him by saying, "Nineteen is old enough to know that if you have got somethin that means the world to you it’s all that more likely it’ll get took away. Sixteen was, for that matter. I think about that" (133-134). There is a similar level of undying devotion in both relationships. A major reason why Llewelyn picks up the suitcase in the first place is so he can provide a better life for Carla Jean. However, there are some differences in the way that the couples interact with one another. Llewelyn and Carla Jean speak more bluntly and sarcastically to each other in a way that may seem disrespectful to Ed Tom or Loretta. The age gap between Llewelyn and Carla Jean is also much wider than that between Ed Tom and Loretta.

Explain what Sheriff Bell means when he says that he hasn't changed much since he returned from WWII.

Toward the end of the novel Sheriff Bell visits his Uncle Ellis and confesses that he abandoned his unit in WWII when they were ambushed by German forces. He later won a Bronze Star for his service. Now, faced with this seemingly impossible force of violence and evil in the form of Anton Chigurh and the cartels, after thirty-six years of no murders in his county, he's retiring from his post as sheriff. Bell says, "I aim to quit and a good part of it is just knowin that I wont be called on to hunt this man. I reckon he’s a man. So you could say to me that I aint changed a bit and I dont know that I would even have a argument about that. Thirty-six years. That’s a painful thing to know" (282-283). The Sheriff never delves into self-analysis enough for the reader to know what causes him to quit this second time, so all we can assume is that he's afraid, either of failure or death.

Many novels feature a protagonist who undergoes a major change from the beginning to the end of the narrative. Despite Ed Tom's claim that he hasn't changed in thirty-six years, discuss how he changes over the course of the novel.

Sheriff Bell begins the novel from a place of seeming confidence and comfort in his position as sheriff. He admits to being unsettled by a new wave of nihilism in the new generation that seems to be contributing to increased incidents of senseless violence. Though Bell narrates from a place in time chronologically after the events of the novel take place, we as readers see him working through the events as they happen in the main, third-person narrative of the novel. Bell starts out as the voice of reason, a calming, steadying presence for the young deputies who have never seen Chigurh's brand of violence before. But towards the end of the novel, it becomes clear that Bell (and the omniscient narrator) keeps Bell's true feelings concealed from the reader. Chigurh scares Bell away from the position of sheriff; by the end of the novel, there is no doubt that Bell has changed from a confident leader to a despondent abdicator of his position.