Fate and free will in No Country for Old Men
In No Country for Old Men, the genesis of the story witnesses Llewellyn Moss’s ability to secure a drug deal that goes astray and late discovers a briefcase filled with cash. From this fateful beginning, the novel endows in questioning the ability of fate and free will and the ability of people to control what their future holds or choose the outcome of their later lives. Through the novel, the idea of free will is not refuted at all, but the author has managed to bring out its apparent limitations. This means that the ability of free will to function effectively is confined in one mortality and existence in this uncertain world. The success of anyone is a trajectory of all the choices they make despite the route or channel we follow. The ultimate reflection on who we will be in the future depends on the choices we make today despite our geographical location and who are affected by such decisions. At long last, we must die, and that reflects the end of our lives and changes we inflicted in this world. In such a context, this paper will explore the life the characters are guided by fate and free will in No Country for Old Men novel that was written by Cormac McCarthy.
The story in the novel revolves around heroin peddling, ideological violence difference, and greedy. The main antagonist in the novel Anton Chigurh holds the clear notion that everyone’s chance of living is by fate and thus is characterized by asking his victim to flip a coin to make the ultimate decision whether to live or dies. This gives him the power to decide the fate of those whom he deemed unworthy living in this world since he is not entitled to their actions. On a different scale, Chigurh’s antagonist Llewellyn Moss takes plight in making the ultimate decision the kind of action he takes on his victims and lives to take care of the consequences of his action. He believes in free will, and he solely holds the ultimate power to seal the fate of his victims. One such incidence is when he stole money from a dealer and went back to the crime scene with water with a clear understanding that he was to land it a problem with the dealer and authority. When asked to give back the money he had stolen, he refuses despite knowing that such action could endanger his existence and that of his wife. The main character in law enforcement, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, despite how hard he tried to come into understanding o the motive that propels actions taken by Chigurh and Moss, he never come into conclusion. Therefore, the main themes revolve around these three characters in the strive by the sheriff to understand the difference in the two lawbreakers’ irrational morals in executing the crime.
Fate is the notion that everything happens by chance, and the ultimatum of fate can be swayed away to either good or bad luck. Since the accidental discovery of a briefcase filled with money by Moss, the flow of the story adopts uncertainty in questioning whether we have control of what happens to our life or whether everything we do is based on fate. Chigurh is shown in the novel as anyone who does not believe in the afterlife or existence of the soul, thus associate human beings with animals whom he can hunt and decide what to do with his prey. He has perfected the art of killing his victim to the satisfaction of his ego. He is cited using a powered bolt gun to kill his human victims, a weapon that is used to kill animals. Chigurh, who is endowed in universal ideology on fate, represents a perverted sense of logic and opportunity and thus uses a coin to decide who he will kill or spare. He uses the coin as a symbolic equilibrium on the way our action, as discussed in the introduction, determines the outcome of our action. Therefore, those who cross his path are in charge of their fate, and their destiny is based on coin-flipping. According to Cutchins (159), offering his victim to choose between head and tail side of the coin “ is ultimately useless since the probability of landing on either side is 0.5.” Here the power of fate playa out openly since in both case no one has a free will on the which side of the coin is likely to land.
On a different scale, the protagonist of the story, Moss, believes in the power of free will, and he is seen throughout the novel to allude that he is full control of his life. He is presented as a canning character who is propelled by his desire to take control of his freedom by having his life under control on his terms and conditions ” every step you take is forever, and you cannot make it go away” (McCarthy 227). In the novel, he is endowed in overcoming his fate and makes decisions that he believes can make his life better in the future. Once he accidentally collated the briefcase filled with money, he refused all Chigurh offers despite the risk involved with a clear belief that he had the potential of keeping the money and use it to better his life later. the same characteristic is depicted by his wife Carla Jean, who refused to toss Chigurh coin since ” the coin didn’t have no say. It was just you” (McCarthy, 258). This was based on her free will and guarantee that she was destined to die, which proves the notion of fate wrong. He decided not to toss the coin and that of her husband Moss to accept Chigurh’s offer, let to their death based on ultimatum of free will, not fate. Their death presents insignificant of Chigurh’s connotation of the coin-tossing to determine the fate of his victims, thus making free will prevail over fate.
The in an investigation by the sheriff of Eagle Pass in the shoot-out in Eagle Hotel, the connotation of fate and free will in the determination of our life is depicted. The sheriff begins the conversation by making a profound remark on the fate of the clerk, according to the incident. Upon examination of the dead body of the hotel clerk, his remakes were “About as bad a piece of luck as you could have … Caught a stray round.” This means that his fate had already been determined and whether he was not shot by a bullet that killed him stay bullet could have killed him in the same incidence. Although he never wished to die through such incidence, he had no free will to choose the unlimited action on what was happening in the incidence that led to his death. When Tom Bell question where the stray bullet hit the night clerk, he was answered “right between the eyes by the other sheriff. The precision of the bullet to hit the clerk in-between the eyes is by chance or fate since the source of the bullet had not aimed him. It takes a high level of precession to hit anyone in between their eyes even within a close target. Being shot in between the eyes has nothing do with the clerk fate or free will on where she wanted to be shot but by a chance of bad luck. Sum up this argument on the death of the clerk, the clerk getting killed by a stray bullet that night was just by fate but not free will since he could have died anywhere else under a different circumstance. In general, the clerk was found in the wrong place at the wrong time, which sealed his fate.
The ideology of free will and fate in the novel is highly rampant, and it takes precedent over the other themes. Other characters in the novel have been shown to perceive fate and free will in different measures with the difference in the outcomes. As witnessed above the fate overcame free will in the case of Moss, although he managed to show a significant difference in manifestation and presentation of fate. In the case of Bell, his perception of fate was forced to change after he openly accepted his incapability to overcome Chigurh and retires. This signifies acceptance of his fate rather than stick to the belief of free will, which he highly held. The sheriff Llewellyn in the book was killed by a mobster from Mexico, which brings his audience to question whether his death was by fate or free will. The fate of his death can be associated with his ability to defend himself from the mobster or mobster to refrain from his direction due to his police powers. Free will can allude to his previous actions, which could have triggered the monster to eliminate him as a way of sealing their fate in the USA.
To make a conclusion on whether fate can prevail on free will in our life is hard since, in the end, Moss died while Chigurh survived a car crash that was propagated by his quick thinking in the decision of fate. The analysis of the novel does not give a clear or specific answer to wither the conclusion of the novel ends by settling on the fate of free will. This is because the novel takes an ambiguous plot, which leaves the readers to decide the fate of the novel in either way they chose; fate or free will. Therefore, one can choose to interpret the ideology of fate and free will in the novel based on either Moss or Chigurh connotation depending on whom one perceives as the best