To What Extent Is Anton Chigurh Insane In No Country For Old Men

Several characters question Anton Chigurh’s sanity. Only Sheriff Ed Tom Bell withholds such judgment, telling El Paso Sheriff Roscoe Giddens, “I’m not sure he’s lunatic,” then adding, “[S]ometimes I think he’s pretty much a ghost.” Is Chigurh insane? Consider the rules or principles he lives by as well as the unstated motivations for all of his actions, and take into account whom he kills and does not kill (and why).

In the novel No Country For Old Men, several characters question Anton Chigurh’s sanity. Many people in the novel believe that Anton is crazy, however only Sheriff Ed Tom Bell thinks that Anton is not a lunatic. Although Anton Chigurh is a psychopath and lacks empathy, I also do not believe he is insane. Sanity is defined as

These two people were a gas station proprietor and Carla Jean Moss. When he flips a coin for Carla, she refuses and says “‘I ain’t gonna call it...The coin don’t have no say. It’s just you’”, in which Anton replies with “‘I got here the same way the coin did’” (258). Anton conveys that him and the coin both went down a path decided by fate, which led them there. Throughout the novel, fate, rather than chance, is the ultimate ruling factor over the lives of people that come in contact with Chigurh. After Carla chooses the side of the coin in the coin toss that leads to her death, Anton tells Carla “‘I had no belief in your ability to move a coin to your bidding...the shape of your path was visible from the beginning’” (259). Although there was a chance that Carla could have picked tails on the coin, the side of the coin that would let her live, it was her ultimate destiny to pick heads. Also, when Anton did a coin toss to decide whether the gas station proprietor would live, he tells him “‘you’ve been putting it up your whole life’” and that the coin “‘has been traveling twenty-two years to get here. And now it’s here. And I’m here’” (56). This conveys the idea that fate led him and the coin there and it was his destiny to do a coin toss to decide whether he lives or dies, rather than chance. The characters that meet Anton have

Anton brings people to their fate and once you come in contact with him, there is not much you can do to live, if it is your fate to die. Carson Wells tells Moss “‘there’s no one alive on this planet that’s ever had a cross word with him… you could even say he has principles. Principles that transcend money or drugs or anything like that’” (153). This reveals that Anton kills whomever he meets and once one has met their fate, there is nothing they can do to change it. Although one could argue that the two people that were offered a coin toss had much more control over what happens to them, it was their fate to decide on a coin toss and one cannot change fate. Even though the man at the gas station would most likely have died if it weren’t for the coin toss, it was his fate to have a coin toss and win. Anton tells him “‘it’s been traveling twenty-two years to get here’” (56). This perception of fate being the ultimate ruler in life leaves characters to have little control over what happens to them when their fate is set.

3. Some critics interpret Chigurh as being Death itself. Is he? Why? If not, why? In the novel No Country For Old Men, Anton Chigurh is portrayed as a personification of death. He is portrayed this way through his lack of empathy and the amount people he kills. Anton Chigurh kills many people and whoever meets him will most likely