Filled with myriad themes and beliefs, Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men excels in its effort to keep the reader's mind racing from cover to cover. The setting is the Texas-Mexico border; the story that embodies a Western-themed modernized Greek tragedy full of drug dealers and automatic weapons. Llewelyn Moss, a Vietnam veteran, finds himself on the run from forces that appear to be an instrument of karmic consequences. While on the run, Llewelyn is given the opportunity to put an end to the madness that has so immediately emerged in his life. But he doesn't. Instead he pushes forward, defying his own advice and insisting on luck, leaving him with only an unfortunate ending. To fully recognize the circumstance in which the novel takes place, the reader must take a dive into the thoughts of the town sheriff, an old veteran just like Llewelyn, named Ed Tom Bell. From there and with an in-depth analysis by Llewelyn Moss, McCarthy helps shed light on why such an assessment was made amidst the lawless violence that has entered this city. Lying on a ridge focused through his Unertl telescopic sight, Llewelyn Moss is first introduced to the reader as he hunted antelope alone in the desert. Unfortunately for Llewelyn, the shot he is about to take will put him on a very dangerous path where he will become the exemplification of one of the main underlying themes of the novel; Death comes to everyone. Throughout the story, Llewelyn will alternate between amoral and moral actions. For example, when Llewelyn misses a shot only wounding the antelope in the desert, he goes in search of the animal so he can put it out of its suffering. Among hunters, this is a very honorable act to perform that gives the reader a preliminary impression of...... middle of paper......ze it. The interludes between chapters in which the sheriff recounts his past serve as a basis for reflection as he tries to understand the events that have taken place since Chigurh arrived in his town. The old way can no longer be tolerated. To survive, the morals that were once so revered by previous generations must now be holstered. The amoral belief to do whatever it takes becomes the pre-eminent possibility for humanity. Ultimately, Llewelyn let Chigurh go knowing it was the moral thing to do, stopping his murder just a few pages later. It's almost as if the world can be scrutinized like a game of cat and mouse. The hunter, as Llewelyn was in the beginning in the wilderness, became the hunted. There was no more room for benevolence and to survive one must put one's morals aside, doing everything to remain the hunter.