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Faith Klijian

UID 50425736

Professor Keeler

Writing 39 B

27 January 2022

No Country For Old Men Rhetorical Analysis

     No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy tells the tale of the internal conflict within humans in how they define their morals and ethics. The book encompasses two primary characters, Llewleyn Moss and Anton Chigurh - a man who gets caught in the middle of a drug deal gone awry and a murderous killer relentlessly chasing him through the most unseen parts of the vicinity of the United States and Mexican Border. Additionally, the story switches from multiple perspectives throughout, distributing the variety of characters and the roles they uphold. No Country for Old Men subverts from typical and traditional Western characteristics of the genre and takes on a more Neo-Western approach, all the while incorporating more modern and late-contemporary aspects, such as diverse morals, a mystery plot in a somewhat industrial setting, and prominent female characters.

     Many of the story's characters attempt to discover some sort of a virtuous mean, signifying how some of the individuals may reference issues and matters in the case of their measures of choices, judgments, emotions, and opinions. This would occur as they encounter drastic representatives of brutality and crime throughout the novel. The three primary roles, Llewellyn Moss, Anton Chigurh, and Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, individually work in society along with dissimilar perspectives of morals and values. Each of them carries different honorable principles, and the events in which they act upon begin to question their standard frameworks of decency. However, simply because this story is set up to have both good and evil characters, it does not mean that the morals of those who are good and the morals of those who are evil are not humanely ethical or “right.” Some characters may be morally gray, such as Llewelyn, or misunderstood, in a sense, like Chigurh. The book does not appear to deliver a solution exceeding the fact that society prevails as insensible to the struggles of its individuals. No Country for Old Men is not affected in furnishing a rendition of the "proper” ethical ideology. Rather, the book strives to study the boundaries and weaknesses of various intellectual supports negotiating with conscientious standards, vacating the audience to encounter their personal concepts of these particular views.

     No Country for Old Men is additionally often categorized as a Neo-Western due to its incorporation of conventional Western characteristics, as well as including newer values that are further repositioned into different settings. The book takes place on the border of the United States and Mexico, and even though it may seem that this would be a representative Western genre, it does include more of an industrial setting. As an instance, another short story, Fire in the Hole, by Elmore Leonard, portrays a similar circumstance, where the narrative is located based in Kentucky, and surrounds the tale of how there are intentions of bombing a IRS building, which is a situation one would not see in a classical Western genre.

     Although there is a great deal of powerful and influential male characters in this story, the book does display the unfamiliarity of having two incredibly prominent female characters that play a key role in the method the events play out as well. By embracing these two characters, Carla Jean Moss, the young wife of Llewelyn Moss, and Loretta Bell, who is shown as Sheriff Bell’s wife, the narrative takes the path of a Neo-Western genre. Typically, female characters one would expect to learn about are almost always portrayed as the “damsel in distress,” or someone who is weak and emotional, opposing the role of male characters, that are usually shown as strong and dominant. The gender choice of these characters contribute to how the story moves along, as well as how these roles, the strong-willed female characters especially, can appear as role models or characters for readers to look up to. 

     Because Neo-Westerns technically maintain their classification of “Westerns”, the book does contain various distinctly identifiable elements of a typical Western story. The novel does include criminals and outlaws, and even has quite a few, like Chigurh, who some may consider, as well as the Mexican drug runners. Westerns are also very well-renowned for including cowboys, which readers may classify as Llewelyn as, or even the sheriffs in the story. But, in another source of a journal, A Contribution to the Psychological Understanding of the Origin of the Cowboy and His Myth, the author, Kenneth J. Munden, claims what real cowboys actually are, as well as what their duties and responsibilities are, and how different they are represented in books and in films. He states that cowboys normally dress rugged, can lift heavy equipment, wear apparel like button-down shirts (regularly with a plaid pattern), brand cattle, and speak with a Southern accent. Although much of this is true for the characters in No Country for Old Men, nowhere in the journal does it assert that each character of the West holds different ethics and values, mystery and crime are incorporated in a somewhat modern setting, and female characters have more significant roles than some of the other male characters.

     No Country for Old Men subverts from the classic and customary Western elements of the genre and carries a more Neo-Western practice. McCarthy recreates utilizing the miscellaneous archetypes among the traditional Western genre, all the while withstanding customs, such as stalemates in broad daylight and bodily characteristics that contribute to the importance of ethical reputation. The Neo-Western approach allows for the convoluted strategies that are used to portray the narrative to its most apparent and pronounced extent, and draws towards an audience that can find an event or character to relate to and appreciate.

Works Cited

Leonard, Elmore. Fire in the Hole. Contentville Press, 2001. 

Munden, Kenneth J. A Contribution to the Psychological Understanding of the Origin of the Cowboy and His Myth. Vol. 15, Leavenworth Times, 1885. 

McCarthy, Cormac. No Country for Old Men. Vintage, 2006. 

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