Content Category
Literary Criticism
Abstract/Description
Critics often focus on the violence in Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men. But the function of memory in Sheriff Bell’s first-person narratives has yet to be examined. Bell may claim to be defeated by the events of the story and the changing times, but the structure of the novel bespeaks a greater importance: his voice marks the beginning and ending of the novel, of each new chapter. His narratives reveal the struggle between his collective and personal memories. In the end, Bell is able to settle in a less conflicted place mediated by his closest relations—his family—where he can exist without overindulging in the destructive excesses of either extreme. Although an imperfect seer, he emerges from his struggles standing in the middle of the times, neither too old to understand the world or too young to see the past––“a man of this time.”
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Location
B150 JFSB
Start Date
19-3-2015 1:15 PM
End Date
19-3-2015 2:45 PM
Included in
A Man of This Time: Memory and Sheriff Bell’s First-Person Narratives in Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men
B150 JFSB
Critics often focus on the violence in Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men. But the function of memory in Sheriff Bell’s first-person narratives has yet to be examined. Bell may claim to be defeated by the events of the story and the changing times, but the structure of the novel bespeaks a greater importance: his voice marks the beginning and ending of the novel, of each new chapter. His narratives reveal the struggle between his collective and personal memories. In the end, Bell is able to settle in a less conflicted place mediated by his closest relations—his family—where he can exist without overindulging in the destructive excesses of either extreme. Although an imperfect seer, he emerges from his struggles standing in the middle of the times, neither too old to understand the world or too young to see the past––“a man of this time.”