Choices for a Day, Consequences for a Lifetime

Choices for a Day, Consequences for a Lifetime

Life is said to be a basic human right, whereas death is a natural occurrence. The only things that differentiate between a living human being and a dead one are prior events. One can choose a path that keeps one's self alive one extra day, whereas another can choose a path that leads to one's ultimate demise. In the novel, No Country For Old Men, author Cormac McCarthy explores the notion that one's choices affect one's fate for the rest of one's life. Major events are depicted, as the result of a previous decision, showing that the future can be predictable as one makes the right choices. Throughout the entirety of the novel, choices are presented and from the path that was chosen, a fate has already been set out. The ultimate struggle between fate and free will are explicitly examined and, eventually, the two come together and are the causes and effects of one another.

The structural base of the novel is set as a result of one choice: Moss's decision to take the bag of money. When Moss discovers the money he knows that what he does will determine the rest of his life: "His whole life was sitting in front of him. Day after day from dawn till dark until he was dead. All of it cooked down into forty pounds of paper in a satchel" (18). Moss knows that from that point on, his life will either become better or become worst. Had Moss chosen not to take the money, he would most probably have nothing to do with any of the events depicted throughout the rest of the novel. Better yet, had Moss opted to leave the money where it was, there would be no novel. A majority of the events from this point on are centered on the choice that Moss had made. It is difficult to fathom that the rest of one's life will be determine by a bag of money. When it says that everyday will be the result of his choice until he is dead, it shows that this choice is going to be the cause of his death. The rest of Moss's life will be leading up to his eventual death. A simple decision between taking money and leaving it be had complicated his life tenfold. It was a choice he made and now, his fate is in the hands of the man who wants that money back.

The choices that are made sometimes result in not-so-ideal circumstances; some result in nothing at all. Every choice that is made has its consequence and by analyzing such a notion, McCarthy presents the reader with the coin toss. There are two instances where the coin toss is used, both involving Chigurh. In the first, Chigurh asks a store clerk to choose between heads and tails:

Call it.

Heads then.

Chigurh uncovered the coin. He turned his arm slightly

for the man to see. Well done, he said.

He picked the coin from his wais and handed it across.

What do I want with that?

Take it. It's your lucky coin (56).

It is not mentioned in the sequence, but it is assumed that had the store clerk chosen tails, he would have been killed. Life is a coin toss. Every choice that is made is either good or bad. In most cases, everything is either heads or tails,