Through the use of soliloquies, Ed Tom Bell is clearly depicted as someone who sees a situation as it is; no padding to the truth, rather just the straight truth. He knew that “you always had to be willin to die to even do this job” (p.4). He knows the risks his job comes with, but he accepts those risks and takes the chance anyway. These soliloquies are used to tell stories of experiences he’s had with criminals. Through his explanations of encounters with different criminals readers can’t help but ask themselves, “how truly unhinged can a human mind become?.”
Most of the time, it seems that Ed Tom Bell either doesn’t know what to do or can’t even begin to figure out the next step in what he should do. He commonly is quoted throughout these soliloquies saying the classic line of, “I don’t know”, showing the internal struggle he has when trying to decide how to approach a situation. Chigurh, for him, is a criminal far beyond human saving; he has no idea how to deal with him. It is starting to become a cycle of Chigurh killing people, and Ed Tom Bell cleaning up his mess, always one step behind him. He constantly is questioning his actions, unsure if he made the correct one or not. The purpose of these soliloquies is to show the constant internal battle that Ed Tom Bell is facing and how this affects his ability to perform his job as a Sheriff and his constant questioning of what humans are truly capable of doing.
Great American Novels 