“I don’t know” is one of Ed Tom Bell’s most frequent phrases used throughout this novel so far. He became a sheriff at the age of twenty-five, so he has been in law enforcement for his whole life, so he should know the twist and turns within the crime department.
McCarthy really constructed Bell into an older sheriff that doesn’t understand the crime he is dealing with in the novel. With each italicized section, Bell comments on how he doesn’t know if law enforcement work is more dangerous now than it used to be, doesn’t know if law enforcement benefits from new technology, and he comments on how he reads the newspaper every morning to try and get an idea of the problems he is dealing with. McCarthy makes Bell out to be a sheriff that is trying to catch the drug-runners, but in the end really has no chance due to his deficiency of knowledge in the crime present in the novel.
Bell seems to be the kind of man that is labeled “traditional”, hence living in a small town in the South, being a sheriff in a small town, married young, and seems to have some harsh comments towards other races. His character is very sheltered and not knowing of the new up-coming problems that are happening within this novel, and he is slowly realizing that.
Great American Novels 