Fate in No Country for Old Men

The theme of fate vs. fortune is one that comes up quite often in No Country for Old Men. The biggest feature of this in the novel is the infamous coin toss scene, when Chigurh is debating with the store clerk––but in reality is just internally arguing––he goes back and forth many times over whether the tiny decisions you make in your everyday life affect your future, or if the universe just has a funny way of figuring things out on its own. While I believe that some decisions you make, such as bigger ones (where you go to college, where you decide to live, who you decide to marry) definitely have an impact on your future, the tiny ones (what you ate today, what you decided to wear today, etc.) have practically no influence on your future. However, the day after we were done reading the book as a class, I got home and my dad was home early from work for some reason. And there he was, on the couch, watching Tommy Lee Jones as Ed Tom Bell in the movie, No Country for Old Men. Coincidence? I’ll let you decide for yourself. I absolutely thought it was freaky coming home to see that just playing on TV after such a big discussion piece was about fate vs. fortune.