Chigurh Character Analysis

Chigurh can be interpreted as being death itself based on the many morbid things that he did throughout the novel. In the novel Chigurh liked to play with other characters fates by flipping a coin to decide on whether or not he was going to kill them. At one point in the novel Chigurh pulled a quarter out of his pocket and asked a man behind the counter of a gas station if he knew what date was on the quarter and the man said no so Chigurh told him “It’s nineteen fifty-eight. It’s been traveling twenty two years to get here. And now it’s here. And I’m here. And I’ve got my hand over it. And it’s either heads or tails. And you have to say it. Call it” (56). Little did the man behind the counter know he was actually calling the coin that was going to decide on whether or not he was going to live or die.

This shows that Chigurh can be interpreted as death because he holds peoples futures in his hand, and by saying one little word, heads or tails, someone either lives or dies. Chigurh also took the fate of another character, Carla Jean, in the novel into his own hands by deciding on whether or not she lived or died based on the flip of a coin. Like the man before Carla Jean Chigurh asked her to call the coin flip but she said she would not do it because she said that “God would not want [her] to do that” which shows that Carla Jean did not believe that she should control her own fate that was up to God, but Chigurh was the complete opposite, he did not consider God in any situation because he believed that he was in control of other people’s fate (258). After Carla Jean said that she would not call it Chigurh tells her that “[She] should try to save [herself]. Call it. This is your last chance”