No Country for Old Men

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Mapping Fate or Free Will”

In this activity, students will visually represent relationships between plot, character motives, and actions to support a claim as to whether the novel as a whole is an argument for fate and determinism or choice and free will.

Like a detective, examine plot, character motive, and actions to determine whether the book is an argument for fate and determinism or choice and free will.

• After you have gathered your evidence, organize it in a visual format such as an infographic, a police investigation wall, or other display, clearly labeling relationships between characters and actions and identifying causation and effect where applicable.
• Your evidence should clearly show which stance you believe the novel supports.
• Briefly present your findings to the class, calling attention to the 3 strongest points of evidence in your visual display.

Teaching Suggestion: Due to the abstract elements of the assignment, students may benefit from examples or a whole-class brainstorm to introduce the gathering of evidence. Graphic organizers or annotation guides may help students delve deeper into the text. Remind students that “visual representation” does not necessarily require a drawing or other artwork, but could also include infographics, text diagrams, slideshows or other visual aids.   

Differentiation Suggestion: For students with organizational or executive functioning differences, additional instructions or step guides may be beneficial. For multilingual learners, preselected and/or pre-highlighted passages may help with time management and ease transition from comprehension to argumentation. To open this assignment up to more learning styles and/or backgrounds, consider allowing options for group work, written forms, or oral responses.

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. In many ways, No Country for Old Men reads like a Western; it also, however, subverts many of the common tropes within the genre.

• To what extent does the novel borrow from or critique the Western genre? (topic sentence)
• Analyze and discuss where the novel follows conventions for the Western, where it subverts them, and how this subversion critiques key premises of the Western.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, evaluate the effectiveness of borrowing from and critiquing the genre, given the story’s themes and subject matter.

2. Major characters each subscribe to a set of personal beliefs or worldviews that they use to both guide and explain their actions. Choose one character befitting this description for the purpose of this essay.

• How does this character use this belief or worldview to justify their actions? (topic sentence)
• Describe this character’s guiding beliefs or worldview. Identify at least 3 examples of ways in which this character uses their belief system as a justification for their actions and describe the outcomes.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, explain to what degree these subjective beliefs are sufficient for justifying actions and what this might reveal about the differences between human law and moral law.

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by text details, and a conclusion.

1. Luck and chance are recurring motifs within the novel. In a 3- or 5-paragraph essay, explore the role of luck in the novel. How does McCarthy use the concept of luck as a counterbalance to the concepts of fate and free will explored within the novel? What overall messages are conveyed by the appearance of luck?

2. For Sheriff Bell, the truth is an inviolable fact that exists objectively and that cannot be corrupted by subjective interpretations. In a 3-paragraph essay, identify and analyze at least 3 firm facts that emerge despite the various perspectives within the story. Where do Moss, Chigurh, and Bell come across these incorruptible truths and what might these interactions suggest about larger themes?

Multiple Choice and Long Answer Questions create ideal opportunities for whole-text review, exams, or summative assessments.

Multiple Choice

1. Which idea is most strongly represented when Moss returns to bring water to the surviving drug runner?

A) An act of mercy

B) An attempt to undo an immoral action with moral action

C) A fatal flaw

D) A catalyst for the story

2. Why is it a pointless action to hide the truth from Carla Jean about where Moss has been?

A) Carla Jean is involved by association, so ignorance won’t save her.

B) Carla Jean has already seen the money.

C) Moss will have to confess eventually.

D) Moss does not hide the truth because he tells her the bag is full of money.

3. What does Bell always expect from Wendell and others?

A) Bell expects follow-through.

B) Bell expects his men to uphold the law.

C) Bell expects his men to be relentless in pursuit of Chigurh.

D) Bell expects respect for the dead.

4. What does Bell say people never notice even though they complain about the bad things that happen to them that they don’t deserve?

A) People never notice the bad they do to others.

B) People never notice the bad they do deserve.

C) People never notice the good they don’t deserve.

D) People never notice where their actions lead them.

5. When Bell says his job is getting paid to be the first one hurt or killed, what does this reveal about his character?

A) He believes his job is immoral.

B) He sees himself as a martyr.

C) He is dedicated within reasonable limits.

D) He rejects the notion of serving and protecting.

6. Based on the story and character interactions, how does luck differ from fate?

A) Neither luck nor fate are deserved.

B) Both luck and fate are random, but only luck can be good or bad.

C) Luck is random but fate is predetermined by cause.

D) Neither luck nor fate are real.

7. Which of these ideas is most clearly symbolized by the transponder?

A) The attraction of opposing forces

B) The futility of hiding as well as the futility of searching

C) The question of ethics regarding surveillance

D) Cause and effect

8. How does Chigurh view his escape from the deputy at the beginning of the story?

A) He thinks it is luck since he was left unattended.

B) He thinks it means that he is destined to win.

C) He believes he can extricate himself from fate with an act of will.

D) He believes it is proof of his own superiority.

9. In what ways does Bell connect changes with problems in schools to an overall social and moral decay?

A) School issues used to include gum chewing but now include drugs.

B) Increasing lack of respect for teachers parallels a lack of respect for law enforcement.

C) Teachers are no longer allowed to provide corporal punishment, so bad manners stand.

D) The weakening curriculum standards are the cause of moral decay.

10. For Bell, what is 10 times worse than a criminal?

A) A cartel dealer

B) A “crooked” police officer

C) Chigurh

D) Atheists and Nihilists

11. What symbolic significance does Bell find in the cartel’s use of mason jars?

A) It shows how even innocuous items become corrupted when put to bad use.

B) It shows unfairness because people cannot preserve their food.

C) It represents carelessness because glass is breakable.

D) It represents an estrangement from cause and effect.

12. What does Moss mean when he tells the runaway she can’t just start over in California?

A) He means she will miss her people before long.

B) He means that California is as corrupt and meaningless as anywhere else.

C) He means she will have to change her behaviors when she gets there.

D) He means that a person can’t walk away from the past because it made them.

13. What does Chigurh tell Clara Jean that people always tell him?

A) You don’t have a choice.

B) You are a good man.

C) You can do the right thing.

D) You don’t have to do this.

14. What might the car crash that Chigurh survives represent?

A) It represents a lack of justice since he lives.

B) It represents the influence of luck, not will.

C) It represents a turn toward a belief in a higher power.

D) It represents a coin toss.

15. How does the ending differ from most crime thrillers or Westerns?

A) Chigurh is arrested but not by Bell.

B) There is no traditional climax.

C) Bell does not save himself.

D) After the showdown, Chigurh gets away.

Long Answer

Compose a response of 2-3 sentences, incorporating text details to support your response.

1. In what ways is Chigurh’s claim in Chapter 9 that he is “completely reliable and completely honest” not completely honest?

2. What is the benefit of this novel’s ambiguous ending to the reading experience?