Officer Ed Tom Bell is clearly an experienced officer, who has witnessed numerous crimes, and seen into the minds of a myriad of criminals. However, he still has difficulty understanding the minds of those perpetrators as seen in the first soliloquy. And despite his experience, he still considers Chigurh to be some new breed of criminal, a special sort of evil that in all his years Ed Tom Bell has not seen. This begs the question: Is Chigurh a different criminal mind from those Bell has witnessed in the past, and if not, why does Bell perceive it to be so?
Uncertainty is another clear element present within his soliloquies. This comes across both in how he deals with his line of work, but also in his dealings with criminals, especially Chigurh. With every stop, he knows that he is putting his life in danger, but he considers that to be a part of the job. He appears to be a realist, not living in a fantasy of what he wishes to be right. Ed Tom is also uncertain how to interpret and handle Chigurh. He can’t understand Anton, as his brain works in a completely different manner from his own, and so the soliloquies demonstrate the struggle of Ed Tom to attempt to understand, and his failures to do so.
Great American Novels 