Analysis Of No Country For Old Men By Cormac Mccarthy

History has a tendency to repeat itself.  One of humanity’s most popular ways of getting its point across is through violence.  When words are no longer enough to argue a point, human casualties not only directly solve the problem, but symbolically send a message to all those affected as well.  Just as the American colonies fought against the British for Freedom when their voice was no longer heard, and just as the Islamic extremists used terrorism to send an evil message to America, both V and Chancellor Sutler used violence to gain a voice in a world of chaos.

In Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men, Anton Chigurh is a hitman tasked with recovering drug money stolen by the main protagonist, Llewelyn Moss. Chigurh is completely ruthless and he allows nothing to interfere. Chigurh kills without thought or remorse but paradoxically follows “moral” principles that are based solely on chance. In the novel, Anton Chigurh is portrayed as sociopathic, arrogant, yet ironically trustworthy.

If violence can never be legitimized, then why does it exist with such prominence? Thomas Hobbs believed that humans live in a perpetual state of war, ?a Bellum ominium contra omnes, a ?war of all against all? (Candelaria 907).? Humans are naturally violent. Freud agreed with Hobbes, believing that aggression is a natural human instinct. Fear and desire motivate mankind to violence. Freud also believed that violence would naturally beget violence. Because all humans fear death, when threatened they will turn to aggression to protect themselves. These dim views of the human condition show violence to be intrinsic in our

In his Wall Street Journal essay, “Violence Vanquished,” Steven Pinker claims that contrary to perceived notions of increasing violence and turbulence in the world, "brutality is declining and empathy is on the rise.” Pinker establishes this argument through numeric comparisons of death tolls, genocides and other aggressive perpetrations in modern society with those in prehistoric times. He credits the fall in these quantifications of “violence” to the processes of pacification, civilization, humanitarian revolution, Long Peace, New Peace and the rights revolution that have together created an environment conducive to “our better angels.”

According to Annette Gordon-Reed, It is common for people to look at women’s novels and not take them seriously, especially in that time. “Jane Smiley, in a controversial essay, asked why Stowe’s novel has been more harshly treated than works written by men which are just as dated and offensive in their treatment of race, notably, Huckleberry Finn.” (Annette Gordon-Reed). I believe that Stowe’s novel was taken seriously as a woman’s novel. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was very influential in that time period, and still is today. The novel is commonly noted as a big influence that began the Civil War, and people still refer to it today. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is used very commonly today as a reference to slavery and the time period, and in many literature courses throughout high school and college. It is also stated in this critique that, “As a woman, Stowe had no hope of making a statue” (Annette Gordon-Reed). I disagree with this statement as well. Although women, along with blacks, were suppressed in that time period, there were many influential women in that time period that made a ‘statue’ for themselves, or a name.

When Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer captures the interest of people by combining an ordinary life of a football player with the life of an American soldier. Putting two different settings in one story let Krakauer mold and form the two themes into one. Pat Tillman became the knot that Krakauer uses to unify the life of an ordinary American citizen to an American soldier. He puts down his helmet of a football player to take up a helmet of an American soldier. Because of Pat Tillman’s life, Krakauer successfully reveals the unfairness of power, the horrendous outcome of modern warfare, and the contorts ways of today’s society.

     The ending of the Blood Meridian is both abstruse and compelling. The setting when the kid first walks into town (pp.324) seems almost too familiar. This town could be any number of different towns located throughout the Midwest, but it seems strangely related to the town of Nacogdoches. The Kid, once thought to be on some sort of migratory movement to the West, has now completed a full circle and has returned to the place of his birth. Birth not in the physical sense of being delivered from his mother’s womb, but rather the Kid experienced a rebirth in the form of one of the judge’s “great clay voodoo dolls (pp.13).';

One of the most influential songs of all time, “Imagine” by John Lennon, envisions a world of peace; “Imagine there’s no countries…nothing to kill or die for…imagine all the people, living life in peace.” During the 1970’s the hippy movement was very pro-pacifism and love, however, it ended almost abruptly. This was not the only cultural movement to advocate for peace, Mahatma Gandhi was the strongest advocate for non-violence in the last century, and he was assassinated. But can life really be lived completely peacefully? History has proven that violence is inevitable and that peace, while a beautiful concept, is nothing more than such. Since the beginning of time our race has shown that fighting is inescapable. There must be some reason as to why humans are violent creatures. Ayush Midha wrote an interesting article, “The Neuroscience of Aggression” which attempts to answer this question. Her authoritative work makes the claim that our species has a complex connection and desire for violence. Midha’s main argument is a claim one of cause and effect. All cause and effect claims have very opinionated and debated points of view. This makes her job hard to convince the reader of her standpoint. However, Ayush Midha’s effective use of Toulmin’s argument style makes her position strong and compelling.

Throughout Cormac McCarthy’s Suttree, the title character is constantly evolving throughout adulthood. We first meet Suttree while he is in prison, a place where he has major conflicts with his inner self. By the end of his journey, Suttree is more unified and has found inner peace. Carl Jung is an analytical psychologist who has many theories based on the human unconscious. Jung’s premier psychological theory of archetypes where every person falls into different archetypes help to identify Suttree. Suttree falls into three different archetypes: the seeker archetype, the innocent archetype, and by the end of the novel the self-archetype. Most of these characteristics are seen through his decisions while interacting with others, but his time spent alone also helps to prove that Suttree has these archetypes more than any others. Also, since he shows to be these three archetypes, it is easier to sympathize with Suttree, instead of declaring him as a solipsistic being. Another one of Carl Jung’s most popular psychological theories is the belief of multiple layers of consciousness. His most popularized belief is the idea of the collective unconscious. In Suttree, the collective unconsciousness is represented through the descriptions of the Reese family. The collective unconscious represents the primitive nature of humans, and the Reese family is McCarthy’s way of showing his feelings towards the collective mind.

As most people would agree, the 20th century contained some of the bloodiest and most gruesome events ever recorded in history. Why do words such as Hiroshima, Rwanda, The Final Solution, A Great Leap Forward, The Great Purge and so many more spark such vivid images of blood, torture and murder in our minds? And despite those horrific images, what is it that causes us humans time and time again to commit such crimes against humanity? Those are the kinds of questions Jonathan Glover, a critically acclaimed ethics philosopher, tries to answer in the book he had spent over ten years writing, Humanity: A Moral History of the 20th Century. Through Humanity Glover tries to answer those questions in a way which will give a solution as how we can

“Violence causes more than 1.6 million deaths worldwide every year.” Around 1600s, there was a change in how humans viewed, governed, and managed our life in this time. Specific people who thought about these new ideas were named philosophes. Philosophes although did not all have the same ideas of how governments should run their country, some believed that people should have no freedom and give it to the government as humans when being in a state of too much power or freedom were barbaric and violent savages. One Philosopher that agreed with those morales and I agree with is Thomas Hobbes, his ideas were that of humans being On the other hand other philosophes want there to be a spread of power and not give all of their freedom, these are

“Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation”. This famous quotation from Martin Luther King JR is what people nowadays want to believe in, but our past endeavours have been about surviving the deathly storm set out by our superiors. I re-enter the world every morning to see the new city that never sleeps, there is always something happening somewhere, either it’s deafening gunfire’ or the cry of the poor and the suffering.

In the twentieth century humanity experienced violence on a wider scale than ever before. This violence took the name of war, revolution, genocide, as well as various other attempts to provide an explanation for the amount of human sacrifice and loss. Through these events billions of people came face to face with experiences that challenged their concept of humanity. Humanity is a seemingly well founded idea that humans were innately separate from beasts and animals; this idea is required by a central technology to the human experience, civilization. In the twentieth century the world realized how thinly veiled the mask of civilization was through their experience with World War 1, embraced its newly discovered savage nature with radical political ideologies, and through much struggle grew from the kill-or-be-killed mentality.

Human beings aren’t killing each other as much as we used to. Violent crimes such as murders, rapes, assaults etc. are on a statistical decline, not just in the United States, but on a global average as well. While still far from that ideal utopia mankind dreams of, we have come a long way since the days of World Wars, rampant racism, and wonton infliction of agony. Have we just grown bored of all pillaging and raping? Are we now realizing that violence is not the answer but the problem? Or have men like Mahatma Gandhi and women like Arundhati Roy challenged our intellect and ushered us onto the path of peace? Certain political theorists have been so influential in history that their teachings completely change the course of human destiny

Throughout history, the acceptance and willingness to commit violence in a society has been, and still is, a mystery to many people. Although there are personal choices involved when deciding if an action is right or wrong, violence in a society hinges on the ideology of authority. When an authority figure has an ideology that encourages violence a society will be more prone to accept brutality because of the importance of leadership. People generally are brought up to view authority as something that should be obeyed and respected, making it harder to distinguish what is right when obedience means violence. Moreover, the ideology of a leader, whether beneficial to people or harmful, slowly infiltrates the core beliefs of a society, creating a belief system that corresponds with the intentions of the leader. It is easy for a society to turn from what was acceptable at one point in their past to what the authority determines is right and acceptable because human beings are so susceptible to the influence of other 's opinions and beliefs. It is even less of a moral struggle when authority has already established allegiance in the hearts of people and there is a devotion to carry out the goal of a leader. When the motives of a strong leader involve carrying out acts of violence towards others, the followers are more inclined to accept violence as part of obedience to their leader because not only is there a disconnect from feeling responsible for an action, but also because