No Country for Old Men Themes
Good vs. Evil
In the grandest showdowns of good versus evil, good always triumphs in the end. Harry Potter versus Voldemort. Batman versus the Joker. Mowgli versus Shere Khan. The Roadrunner versus Wile E. Coyot...
Mortality and Ethics
Morality and ethics are more complicated than simple good and evil. Sometimes the good guys do thinks that we wouldn't consider moral; on the other hand, we have to admit that the bad guys have wha...
Violence
At least one cover for No Country for Old Men is basically all red.Yeah, they might want us to think that this is a sunset, but we know better—this book is soaked in blood. Cormac McCarthy doesn'...
Old Age
Folks, the book is called No Country for Old Men. If you're thinking it will probably involve old men sitting around talking about being old, you get a gold star. Now, it's not that these old guys...
Drugs and Alcohol
Before Walter White of Breaking Bad started manufacturing meth, people had to import their hard drugs. Localvores couldn't abuse illegal substances, because very few of those illegal substances wer...
Choices
We're going to flip a coin. Call it: heads or tails. Is it fate where the coin lands? Is it fate which side you call? Or is there a choice involved?In No Country for Old Men, Chigurh believes that...
Perseverance
"Don't mess with Texas." What started as a PSA about the damaging effects of litter has evolved into a statewide motto about Texans in general. They remind you not to mess with them on street signs...
Criminality
Looking at all the themes we've pulled from No Country for Old Men—good versus evil, drugs and alcohol, violence, morality and ethics—you'll see that all of these contain one critical element....