It takes very little to govern good people. Very little. And bad people cant be governed at all. Or if they could I never heard of it.
This is a quote from one of Officer Ed Tom Bell’s soliloquies from near the beginning of the novel. Throughout, one of the recurring themes is Ed Tom’s attempt to understand the mind of Chigurh, and on a greater level, criminals like him. However, he constantly falls short, thus the title, in a literal sense.
In this passage, Bell seems to be almost reconciling with the idea that certain people are predestined to be criminals, and they are incapable of living a lawful life.
I want to take a brief look at this idea, and how it is used within the United States today. Whether or not this is true has a tremendous impact on how we treat criminals in the criminal justice system. Are there certain people who are unable to live peacefully within a system, as Bell states in this quote? Throughout the entirety of the novel, Chigurh never even considers whether or not what he’s doing is lawful, or even good. It seems like he perfectly fits the mold of that type of criminal, which is most likely influencing Ed Tom’s thoughts. Despite living by a philosophy of taking control of one’s life, Chigurh repeatedly chooses to murder, to steal, and to commit many other crimes. As it stands today, nearly half of US states have the death penalty, while many more all over the country are sentenced to life in prison. Are these criminals destined for a life behind bars? It seems like Ed Tom would say yes.
Great American Novels 
3 replies on “Are criminals destined to be behind bars? Quote Examination”
William, I would like to talk about a phrase you said in your blog post “Chigurh repeatedly chooses.” Chooses. Choices. All that humans can do are make choices. One controls what they do. If they choose to commit a crime, then they have also chosen to accept the punishment for said crime. Destined is in my opinion the wrong word, people make their own choices.
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To counter your point nvroman20, you could say that every decision a person makes is influenced by events which have already transpired, and while we all have the free will to make our own choices, we are inherently and incredibly influenced by the choices of others and the universal laws of matter. Thinking this way may seem uncomfortable, as you relinquish perceived control and even accountability for your own actions, but I do not think that there is any way to counter its validity. Often times even thinking this way gives you more control over your own actions so that you can seemingly prove the principle wrong.
I think this idea is even chronicled in No Country for Old Men through Chigurh’s coin, and the seemingly unimportant events which have lead to it being possessed by Chigurh.
It’s also interesting to compare immoral psychopaths like Anton Chigurh, who seems biologically destined for crime, to ordinary people who commit crimes due to pressure from a multitude of events out of their control. Is one of these groups more justified in their committing of crimes than the other? Ending a post on a question is cliche, so there, I didn’t.
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Gus while you do make a good point about how society sometimes will force someones hand into committing a crime of desperation or necessity, I still think that people still have to make a choice, a yes or no, to everything they do. No matter how much the outside world influences, people still pick a side. Also, I don’t think there is such thing as a justifiable crime. But then again, who is to say what is a crime in our corrupt modern society? And to end my post, “ending a post on a question is cliche, so there, I didn’t,” I will quote you as well.
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