Choices In Llewelyn Moss's Novel 'No Country For Old Men'

Throughout one’s life they are faced with choices and react accordingly to what feels to be the best decision for the moment. The choices one makes are considered morally right, wrong or indifferent each having a different outcome. Each decision has its consequence affecting one thing or another, however making the wrong decision has the most impactful consequence often requiring a timely solution. One must recognize the consequence of actions one commits in order to effectively understand the magnitude of the outcome. In Cormac McCarthy’s novel No Country for Old Men, one of the novels protagonists, Llewelyn Moss demonstrates the result of failing to correct the error of his ways resulting in his family’s untimely demise. It begins when he makes a reckless decision out of greed which greatly impacts

In order to fix his mistake he must think of a way to avoid those in pursuit of him and avoid harm’s way. In the end, he proves unsuccessful as he makes poor choices to save those he loves. At first, he is faced with a choice of taking two million dollars in cash or walk away unaffected. Llewelyn Moss is out hunting antelope and stumbles across the carnage of a drug trade. He looks around at the bodies, the firepower present and notes the drugs in the back of a third vehicle, along with one survivor asking for water which Moss has none. Moss regrets he came across the massacre. His opinion changes when he comes across a document case filled with money. Moss chooses to take the money: “It was level full of hundred dollar banknotes in packets fastened with banktape stamped each with the denomination $10,000…His whole life was sitting there in front of him. Day after day from dawn until dark until he was dead. All of it cooked down into forty pounds of paper in a satchel” (McCarthy 17, 18). With the money he would be established for life and be able to live out his life in luxury. However he