Robert Merton's Strain Theory In No Country For Old Men

The movie No Country for Old Men is set in 1980 Del Rio, Texas, and is about a man, Llewelyn Moss, that discovers a satchel of money in the desert from a drug deal gone wrong. Another man, Anton Chigurh, kills practically everyone he meets, and is hired to retrieve the money. Moss does all he can to try and keep this money, only to be killed in the end by another group of Mexican drug dealers. The character of Llewelyn Moss is an example of Robert Merton’s Strain Theory, how a person is prone to deviance if they don’t have access to socially acceptable goals.
There are five different forms of this theory, with two being represented by Llewelyn Moss, conformity and innovation. Inferring from the setting of this movie, the socially acceptable goals of the time were more than likely for a man to settle down and provide for his family. Moss attempts this conformity for as long as he can, until a better opportunity, the money, comes along. He decides that his current life isn’t enough for him, and attempts to innovate to raise his status in life. Unfortunately for Moss, he gets randomly killed by a separate party for the money, coinciding with the basis of Merton’s theory, that crime serves as a way to enforce these

social norms.
Following the timeline of Llewelyn Moss, it’s apparent that he strived to conform, first being a soldier in the Vietnam War, then later becoming a master welder as a trade. Yet neither of these supplied much to Moss family in terms of income, evidenced by how he and his wife lived in a mobile home park. He’s even shown to go hunting to supplement their household. Further, it’s revealed that his wife’s mother was dying of cancer, so money was unquestionably at the forefront of Llewelyn’s mind.
In spite of all that Llewelyn Moss had going for himself, there just weren’t enough resources for everyone in that part of rural Texas, which leads to strain. He obviously wants to conform and be a normal person, but he’s unable to in his current circumstances. He received nothing for being a veteran, and in the rural desert in 1980, there were hardly any job opportunities. This is further supported by the fact that many of the nonwhite residents of the area, the Mexicans, have resorted to smuggling and selling illegal narcotics across the border, another form of innovation. In addition to the scarcity of jobs, the desert offers an insufficient quantity of resources for folks attempting to live off of it. All of this prompts more and more desperation in people, causing a more strained society.
This strain pushes individuals to innovate whenever possible, and that’s exactly what Moss did when he found and took the bag of money.

Throughout this movie, Llewelyn sees Mexican cartels innovating and elevating their status through the illegal means of trading narcotics. He feels no qualms about taking this money because of its previous owners didn’t really earn it. However, as the events unfold, he becomes more and more desperate to escape the mercenary and keep the money. He forces his wife to abandon their property and what she couldn’t carry to go to her mother’s, he endures getting shot at multiple times. Ultimately he’s killed by a different gang for the money, and his wife is killed just on the principle that he tried to escape the

mercenary.
Robert Merton’s Strain theory describes how the access to socially acceptable goals can be used to decide if someone is likely to deviate or not. His theory outlines five different paths that the framework exhibits. Only the first two were displayed in the movie, but the other three are ritualism, retreatism, and rebellion.
To reiterate, conformity would be when a person has both the means and the goals that are acceptable with society, in this movie Llewelyn Moss begins with conformity but tries to innovate by taking the money. Innovation being when someone doesn’t have the means to reach those goals, so they invent or find other means. So, then ritualism is when the individual has the means, but not the goals of society. An example of this would be a person who has the financial support of their parents, but nothing to devote their time to, or to be a part of society. The next type is retreatism, when the person has neither the means or the goals of society. These types tend to be either homeless or some form of hermit, since they are not in any way a part of society. The last type of crime described in this theory is named as rebellion, when someone rejects society’s means or goals, in an attempt to replace them with their own.
The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is an adequate example of Merton’s Strain Theory. The character, Llewelyn Moss experiences a transition from a conforming role to one of innovation. Despite his best endeavors and all the valiant intentions possible, he and his wife are both killed, a fitting deterrent for attempting to deviate from society’s norms.