Wednesday, January 26, 2011

In the coin toss scene, what does Chigurh have to say about fate and chance? What does the coin toss symbolize?

It's one of my favorite scenes in the movie, and it reads
well in the book also.  The idea he presents is a powerful one, in that this coin he has
in his pocket had traveled for twelve years to get to this one place, at this one time,
in a gas station in the middle of the Texas desert.  This same coin, then is to be used
to determine a man's fate, even though he is not fully aware of it.  Imagine the number
of transactions and the incredible random timing and coincidence of this coin being in
Chigurh's hands at this particular point.  I think the idea intrigues Chigurh too.  He
is a man who believes everything happens for a reason, that fate plays a role in these
decisions, if not the dominant role.


Also for Chigurh, this
is perhaps how he has come to rationalize the murders he carries out, that these victims
were fated to die at his hands, and that he is merely the delivery mode for random
chance.  We also see this in the man Chigurh pulls over by the side of the road, just a
random car with a random person that happened to be the next car in front of
him.


Overall, the coin toss can symbolize the randomness of
life and death many humans face at one point or another in their lives.  Those killed in
war and those not, those who live through the Holocaust only to be killed by a mugger
fifty years later, or those killed in an accident that was someone else's fault
(accident scene with Chigurh towards the end of the story too).  All of these are events
beyond our control, random fates determined by chance.  Chigurh believes in this
randomness, represented by the coin, very deeply.  He believes it absolves him of all
his crimes.

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