North American Studies - Borders - Essay Example

Ed Tom Bell, Anton Chighur and Llewelyn Moss are the three central characters upon which the events of the story revolve. The three characters present the first feature of border fiction in McCarthy’s story. The first is Sheriff Ed, the existentially bemused man. Sheriff Ed Tom Bell tries to make sense of the mayhem that originates from his square presence in the corridor of cross-border drug trade. The other character is a Vietnam vet called Llewellyn Moss. Moss skirts between amorality and morality.

He is the first to appear at the novel scene by first taking advantage of valuables he tumbles across in his hunting escapades. Upon returning home with the collected $2 million, Moss goes back to the wilderness to offer help to the wounded man he had left pleading for water (Sanborn, 2009). The chase for Moss begins here and the rest of the book centers on his search and pursuit. The third character in the novel is Anton Chirugh, a ruthless murderer whose actions are motivated by a mixture of probabilistic chance and psychotic fury.

Upon the chase of Moss, the novel tests the moral sense of all the people involved in Moss’ life. The borderline between the United States becomes a mere symbol of sovereignty discontinuation. The principles and values of living within the two countries become merged and seems one in the novel. There is no much distinction in character traits of the people involved in the story. Moss becomes increasingly desperate as the drug barons intensify his search. He senses that the rugged, tough life he experienced during the Vietnamese war might not be sufficient o see him through the pursuit of the drug masters (Worthington, 2009).

His wife, Carla Jean, is torn between her desire to protect her husband and loyalty to him and her vague sense that her husband might have been overpowered and outwitted. Although the thought of Chirugh outmatching her husband was still alien to her, Cara becomes intense at the thought of the indiscriminate killings and decisions of one’s fate by the toss of a coin in the event that he could find her husband. She also gets weary that Sheriff Ed had become incessantly appalled at the depravity and started to feel pained helplessness (King, Rick & Jim, 2010).

Sheriff Ed Bell continually meets actions or circumstances on part of other characters that serve to upend or underline his moral sense. This alternately narrates and soliloquizes the story and themes without clear construction and pattern. No Country for Old Men portrays more than just borderline of sovereignties between Mexico and United States. The narrative tells of the stereotype of traditional western hero in Sheriff Ed Tom Bell. The novel says much of the life of the Sheriff in the West.

He says he was a sheriff of the United States at the age of 25 years. He says, contrary to what many people would think that his father too was in the same line of profession, Sheriff Ed’s father and grandfather were lawyers. In this part of the novel, the Sheriff acknowledges that he is part of tradition, the tradition of lawmen in his family. Through the Sheriff, the author brings about three significant changes in community perspectives. First, 1980s saw a change of Western frontier from a traditional view as the Wild West to a tamed modern West where power was no longer fought for by angry tycoons, was settled and populated, and legal order was already established. Secondly,