I"m finishing No County For Old Men and I can’t help but think just how much I love Lewellyn’s character. It seems I’ve never rooted so hard for a character. It got me thinking, why?
Lewellyn isn’t a good guy. He isn’t a hero. Lewellyn is stealing something that isn’t his. He’s prying blood money from a dead guy’s hands.
Lewellyn isn’t portrayed as a generous lover. If anything, his attitude towards Carla Jean is… antiquated, while Carla seems to adore him. This isn’t to say Lewellyn doesn’t love Carla, but he’s not exactly Noah from The Notebook.
Lewellyn doesn’t solve his problems like a Dresden character - with cool smart plans and elaborate attacks that make you think, “oh shit that was smart and badass!” On the contrary, Lewellyn comes across as one-track-minded and even confrontational, leaving you thinking, “are you sure about this Lewellyn?”
With all this in mind, I think Lewellyn is so likable simply because Cormac puts you alongside Lewellyn like a police ride-along. This guy seems to know what he’s doing and it hasn’t killed him…yet. I’m here for it and I can’t get out now.
So okay… let’s go to this shoddy motel. Show me how to dress this shotgun up. Let’s fix up this room to be ready for an intruder.
The calm weightlessness Lewellyn feels when he holds a gun on Chigurh gave me goosebumps and is something many of us have felt before.
Cormac also makes us wait on Lewellyn in a way where we don’t know what will happen next and we aren’t allowed to ask. We wait with Lewellyn in a quiet empty desert basin all night where you can only wonder, “what are we doing here again?”
I think the reason I end up liking Lewellyn so much is because during this ride-along when i’m thinking, “actually, I’d do it this way” and right when I want to say, “I think maybe we should go th-” Lewellyn veers off and takes us where he thinks we should go. And he’s willing to die for that decision while I am not.
Anyone else feel this way toward Lewellyn?
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He’s an everyman that does what most people would do, only he’s got a slight edge over most people because he’s got some skills.
He shows remorse for leaving the wounded man and gets himself in trouble (I’ll just leave it at that) for acting on that remorse. You can feel like he at least has some sort of moral compass going back to give the guy water.
I think he’s easy to root for because if you rolled up on that amount of cash lost between a group of trash humans, what would you do?
I agree. I was rooting for him the whole time.
I think the reason I like him so much is that he seemed just like a regular guy doing what a normal person might do. He isn’t all of a sudden a mastermind or anything. He is just a regular joe trying to do the best he can in an impossible situation.
Great write-up! I also found myself rooting for Lewellyn, but probably for less sophisticated reasons, lol. He is the protagonist, and my brain always seems to honor that construct, especially when it’s a character vs. another character situation. However, your post has made me reflect on his overall likeability.
Thanks! I’m probably in your same boat a little too honestly - siding with the protagonist just because.
I want to read this novel, but I feel like the movie spoiled it for me. I would much rather prefer to read the book first. If I read it now I’m going to picture Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin, as well as whatever opinions I have already formed about the characters and the plot.
He and the Sheriff and I suppose Anton are Cormac’s real world answer to the Hollywood cowboy.
I think Llewelyn is a fantastic character. To me, he’s not meant to be an absolute.
He’s a cold man out for himself – he is introduced with Chigurh’s words ot his victim “Hold still,” as he hunts the antelope from afar through his rifle scope. He also fairly coldly and dispassionately interrogates the dying man in the truck then leaves him to die a cruel death.
However. He’s also a heroic man who cares for his wife in a gentle, kind series of scenes, he’s resourceful and brave, and he goes back to give the dying man water (which is his undoing).
All beautifully drawn.
Llewelyn is the “shades of grey” between Ed Tom’s goodness and Chigurh’s stark evil.
It’s terrific writing.
Except for the fact that she cries, begs, and pleads for him to give the money back, calling it a false god… and then chigurh gives him a chance to save his wife and he doesn’t take it… then he gets the hitchhiker killed knowing full well what’s coming for him…. Hahaha I didn’t get the lovely sentiment from his character other than the childish charm 🤷🏼♀️
I don’t see any of those things as irredeemable.
He thinks he can beat Chigurh (and to be fair, he almost does). So he tells Carla Jean not to worry, that he can handle it – she first thinks “he can take all comers,” but quickly realizes he can’t.
Llewellyn doesn’t knowingly get the hitchhiker killed – he’s running desperately for his life, grabs a ride hoping they can escape, but Chigurh is too fast. I do argue that he is a likable dual protagonist for at least some of the story – he’s resourceful and brave, and his love for his wife is genuine.
If Llewellyn could have seen what would follow – that his hubris and his actions would lead to his own death, the death of Carla Jean, and several other innocent people, of course he would have made different choices.
But to me, that’s the whole point of the story. Llewellyn thinks he’s the hero of the story. So did I, the first time I saw the movie.
And what I loved about the movie was the way it blindsided me the first time I saw it. I was shocked Llewellyn was killed – and not even by Chigurh! But I also loved it and how it made me question everything I had been watching.
But we can agree to disagree.
Yeah I would definitely agree to disagree. In the novel he makes countless comments regarding his understanding that his life will never be the same again, they will never stop looking for him, and that he’s going to die for taking the money. Again, his childlike mannerisms make it excusable, but he certainly knows what he’s doing.
He’s certainly likeable because of his familiarity, but I did not get quite the same sense. Lol I just wrote an honours essay on this book and discussed his inability to take accountability for his actions, using “fate” as a moral shield. He gets multiple people killed including Carla Jean and the young girl who hitchhikes with him. He’s not a good guy lol