Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Chapter 9 of No Country for Old Men

There isn't a whole lot that happens in this chapter plot wise, but the audience does learn more about Chigurh and Bell.  The three main events in this chapter are Chigurh killing Carla Jean, Ed Tom Bell's conversation with his uncle, and Chigurh getting into a car accident.

The first event that happens is Chigurh killing Carla Jean.  Somehow Chigurh tracks down where she is living and is waiting inside her bedroom when she comes back from her mother's funeral.  Carla Jean isn't really shocked to see him because she knew that it would always be a possibility from the moment Llewelyn took the money.  It seems as if Chigurh is set on killing her, but wants to torture her mentally.  Instead of getting right to the point, they have a long conversation about fate and promises.  Chigurh feels like it was meant for him to be there and that he promised to kill Carla Jean so he must do it.  I thought it was strange however that the coin flip is brought back into the novel.  Chigurh flips a coin and tells Carla Jean to call it.  She refuses, but eventually makes a call which is not the right one.  Apparently Chigurh takes this to mean that her death is justified and that he is just the one who has to do it.

While reading about the coin flip I wondered to myself what would have happened if Carla Jean had called it right?  Would Chigurh have let her live?  After thinking about it I came to the conclusion that he would have killed her either way.  It was stated earlier in the novel that nobody that knew what Chigurh looked like was still alive.  I believe he wanted to keep it that way.

This coin toss senario is different from the one at the gas station.  As we know the attendant at the gas station correctly called the coin and was spared.  Chirguh didn't go into the store with the intention of kill the man.  He just randomly happened to stop at that particular gas station and that man was the one working.  It could have easily been someone else.  This differs with Carla Jean's situation because Chigurh was trying to find her.  He wanted to find and kill her.  There was nothing random about him finding her.

The second event is the conversation between Moss and his uncle.  They talk about their family history, Moss' actions during the war, and about luck.  While talking about war, Moss reveals how he earned, or in his opinion did not earn, the bronze star.  Moss' squad was held up in house when a mortar round hit it and tore it apart.  Many of his fellow soldiers died.  Moss however was alive.  He knew that the enemies would come looking for survivors so he found a .30 caliber machine gun and killed some of the enemies who tried to approach.  As night fell Moss thought that the enemies would start throwing grenades and there was no way he could defend against that.  Moss decided to save his life and leave as fast as he could.

Moss explains this to his uncle who is supportive of Moss.  Llewelyn said that he always thinks about it. What I got from that story was that Moss because a sheriff in order to try and make up for leaving his men behind in battle.  Moss probably feels that if he can keep others safe then he will feel better about his previous actions.

One of the memorable quotes about luck comes from their conversation.  His uncle says "you never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from."  I thought that that statement was pretty true. People seem to complain about certain events in their lives, but really don't think about how much worse it could have been.

The last important event is the car accident Chigurh is involved in.  Chigurh is just driving along when out of nowhere a vehicle hits him.  A split second before the hit Chigurh notices the vehicle and is able to jump to the passenger seat.  Even this does not keep him from being injured.  He still suffers a badly broken arm and several lacerations.  Chigurh comments that he always keeps his seat belt off for moments like that.  This shows me that Chigurh is always planning ahead.  He seems to have an answer for every situation.

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