No Country for Old Men: Motifs

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Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

Southwest Texas

Real towns, highways, counties, and other locations are frequently named in No Country for Old Men, helping to create a realistic setting that is specific to Southwest Texas. The long drives on highways from town to town emphasize the isolation of large sections of the region, which enables criminality like drug smuggling. Descriptions of the Mexico-U.S. border and the relative ease with which people and goods can pass from place to place emphasize the interrelated nature of these countries and their peoples, which plays into the emergence of drug dealing as a major economic activity. The locations also reinforce the strong ties that Texans, like Bell, have to where they come from and to their history. A focus on Terrell County allows McCarthy to highlight small-town life and values through Bell’s character. If readers look at a map of Texas, they will see that the big cities referenced, like Austin and Dallas, are far from where the novel’s action plays out, creating the idea that Southwest Texas is its own entity.

Guns

Guns are a prominent feature in No Country for Old Men. Almost every character seems to carry one. Bell remembers a time when even law enforcement officers didn’t necessarily carry guns, but those days seem long gone. The most notable guns are those that people have adapted to suit their own needs. Readers see Moss transform his newly purchased shotgun by sawing off the barrel to fulfill his need for concealment. Chigurh’s cattle gun weapon, which is specially made by him, is so unusual that it takes Bell several exposures to the marks it leaves to identify it. This weapon certainly functions as an instrument of killing but also as a symbol to show Chigurh’s disregard for his victims. Indeed, it is hard to imagine that No Country for Old Men could take place in the absence of guns.

Technology

Technological innovations in the novel highlight the theme of inevitable change while also providing mechanisms for the evildoers to carry out their violence. While technology can sometimes let the bad guys down, as when the transponder leads Chigurh to the wrong room, Bell opens Chapter III by explaining that new law enforcement technology has never helped him. Readers of the novel see technology almost always helping the criminals. Weapons technology, like machine guns, allows criminals to inflict horrific violence almost instantaneously, and the transponder and phone wiretaps prevent Moss from disappearing with the briefcase of money. These technologies enable not only the death of the intended target but anyone who happens to be in the vicinity, like the hitchhiker or the clerks at the Hotel Eagle. Overall, the technology in No Country for Old Men seems to serve people who seek to do evil.