Embracing Chaos: An Absurdist Interpretation of Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men

Abstract

     Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old (2005) Men aligns closely with Albert Camus’s philosophy of the absurd as portrayed in his The Myth of Sisyphus (1942). This paper argues that the novel goes beyond being a mere crime-thriller novel to become a philosophical inquiry into the futility of moral order, the randomness of violence, and the existential disillusionment of its characters. The analysis will focus on the three main characters of the novel and considers their part in the wider absurd universe of the novel. Anton Chigurh is an embodiment of the absurd—an indifferent, almost metaphysical agent of chaos who operates beyond reason or morality. Sheriff Ed Tom Bell represents the nostalgic yearning for moral clarity that ultimately proves inadequate in the face of modern brutality. Meanwhile, Llewelyn Moss functions as an absurd hero, whose tragic awareness and defiance in the face of inevitable defeat mirrors the struggle of Camus’s Sisyphus. By examining these characters and the philosophical dilemmas they represent, this paper reveals how No Country for Old Men dramatizes the confrontation between human longing for meaning and a universe that offers nothing but silence in reply.