No Country For Old Men Analysis

No Country for Old Men written by Cormac McCarthy takes place on the border of Texas and Mexico during the 1980s. This novel follows Sheriff Ed Tom Bell and his thoughts, which narrate the story. An ordinary man named Llewelyn Moss stumbles upon a group of dead Mexican drug runners and a case full of money while hunting. Anton Chigurh is the antagonist who is hired to retrieve the money, and thus chases Moss as well as kill countless innocents in the process. Llewelyn picks up a hitchhiker on the way to his wife, Carla Jean, and they stop at the motel Desert Sands. A group of Mexican drug runners drive by the hotel, shoot, and kill Moss and the hitchhiker. Chigurh is then able to sweep in and take the money. Although not involved in the action,

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist born on May 6, 1856 in the now Czech Republic. After graduating from the University of Vienna, Freud began to specialize in hysteria and hypnosis (Jacobson). He began to treat patients by allowing them to talk through their own problems and to study their unconscious cogitation. These ideas led him to devise psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis is a method of treating mental disorders by connecting the patient’s conscious and unconscious thoughts and allowing for unconscious fears to be brought to awareness. According to

Freud proposed that the human mind is comprised of three main parts: the Id, Ego, and Superego (Jacobson). The Id is utterly unconscious, and is the section of humans that ensures basic needs are fulfilled. The Id is concerned with instant gratification and instinctive traits, all of which are present at birth. The Ego connects the Id to reality and works to control and rein in the Id’s chaotic nature. It is the mediator between the person and reality (Hinsie, Campbell “Ego”). Saul McLeod, a tutor in psychology at the University of Manchester explains that by appeasing the Id’s, sometimes unreasonable, demands the Ego helps one conform to society’s normatives and behave appropriately. The main goal of the Ego is to obtain pleasure, like the Id, and it has no concept of right or wrong. The Superego controls one’s values and persuades the Ego to make moral decisions. This section of the human psyche is responsible for guilt, as it will punish the Ego for succumbing to the Id’s desires (McLeod). The Superego also tells one how they ought to be and what their societal obligations