The Archetypal Hero's Journey

Many stories from ancient times have been passed down to present days in forms of tales, legends and lores. Most of these stories differ from one to another; especially from today's stories. Stories can have many differences from each other; they have different authors from a different time period, which would have different events to write about. Despite the different style, characters, goals, and even languages and cultures, most of these stories follow a set of archetypes. Within these archetypes, a protagonist is placed as a hero on a journey of leaving their familiar surroundings to enter an unfamiliar and challenging world. This is most commonly known as the hero's journey: a journey that mainly consists of a hero that has been called

to an adventure, going into the unknown and facing challenges as the hero leads into a revelation. The hero would then transform, atone and then return into their previous world. In the novel, No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy uses the character of Sheriff Ed Tom Bell to show the archetypal hero's journey, which is portrayed by his goodwill that kindles his call to adventure, the struggles that Chigurh places on him, and his duty of saving Moss and society as a whole.
To begin with, Bell’s goodwill rekindles his call to adventure; a key concept in the archetypal hero’s journey.

A protagonist must have certain traits to be a hero, those that allow the hero to do acts of justice. The hero must do something for the better of society, and for the most part, exhibit goodness. McCarthy establishes this connection through Bell’s own good will and his strive for a better society. Since Bell is a sheriff, it shows that he has a sense of justice because of his position in the field of law enforcement. Bell goes beyond the call of duty and tries to make himself a better person. Bell, being the noble man he is, makes a commitment “[a]bout truth and justice[.] We dedicate ourselves anew daily. Somethin like that. I think I'm goin to commence dedicatin myself twice daily. It may come to three fore it's over” (McCarthy, 97). Bell dedicates himself towards justice, allowing for more room to help others and society. By “dedicatin” himself “twice daily”, he would have to help something twice a day, which is his way of restoring order to society by fixing the small troubles within it. Many times throughout the novel, individuals have problems and Bell shows that he is making an effort to help them. A hero’s main objective is to help people and to create a better place. With this, Bell follows the hero as he also wants to make a better world. A hero must be good, but not all good; in Bell’s case, it is his defeat in the war. Bell, in a narration says, “I

was supposed to be a war hero and I lost a whole squad of men. Got decorated for it. They died and I got a medal. I dont even need to know what you think about that. There aint a day I dont remember it” (McCarthy, 116). Bell survives the war, but his comrades died, which makes Bell feel defeated and guilty when he looks back at the memory. In the event of being happy for being alive after the war, Bell is broken by the fact that all of his comrades died in an incident and he could not save them. What makes Bell feel the most guilt is the fact that he received a medal for being a “war hero”, which is ironic due to the fact that he could not implement justice at the time. Bell shows goodwill by the fact that he can’t help and feels broken by it. His guilt and sorrow shows that he is a hero by the fact that he wants to save everyone; but him failing them and still getting recognized as a soldier shows that he is within an aspect a hero for just his service. Bells feeling of defeat lead him to accepting the adventure of saving Moss.
(the hero would decline the call then would later come to accept it. After accepting it a hero must be faced with challenges, chigurh in this case is the challenge)
Through his struggles with Chigurh, the drug dealers and the bigger evil, Bell’s journey follows the archetype’s aspect of challenges and temptations.

A hero’s usually denies or can’t accept their mission as it very fearful and out of the ordinary world. These adventures have risks that are beyond what is within the ordinary world and require the hero to go into the special world. In Bells case it is the fact that the suspect is of nothing compared to any other problem Bell’s county has seen. Before the call to adventure arose, Bell rejects anything from the antagonist, “But there is another view of the world out there and other eyes to see it and that's where this is goin. It has done brought me to a place in my life I would not of thought I'd of come to. Somewhere out there is a true and living prophet of destruction and I dont want to confront him. I know he's real. I have seen his work. I walked in front of those eyes once. I wont do it again. I wont push my chips forward and stand up and go out to meet him”(McCarthy, 2). Bell came very slightly across evil and only saw a small glimpse of Chigurh's work and is completely terrified from Chigurh. Bell in this case sees the outside world, the special world where all evil is beyond the ordinary, and is traumatized by the magnitude of impact the drug-dealers and Chigurh have. Because of this, Bell doesn’t want to do any mission or tasks that involves the drug-dealers and Chigurh. When Moss gets caught up in Chigurh and the

drug-dealers business, Bell relates to the time he failed his war comrades and decides to not fail Moss this time. After accepting to deal with the case, he struggles with the degree of power drug-dealers have. Bell talking to a deputy says “I used to say they were the same ones we’ve always had to deal with. Same ones my granddaddy had to deal with…but I dont know as that’s true no more. I’m like you. I aint sure we’ve seen these people before. Their kind. I don’t know what to do about em even. If you killed em all they’d have to build an annex on to hell.”(McCarthy, 44). Bell revealing that he doesn’t know who or what these people are, shows that he is struggling with the case. As a sheriff, he also must know what his suspects are in order to face them. But one of the struggles he faces on his hero’s Journey is the fact that Chigurh is almost untraceable. When Bell says ”Same ones my granddaddy had to deal with”, he is talking about the troubles that were in his ordinary world. But when he says “I dont know as that’s true no more.” he realizes that he is in the special world, and starts to worry more about the situation. The archetypal Hero also struggle with evil, some cases they die and revive or other times they survive, but in the end, they would always return with more knowledge or a treasured possession.

Bell’s mission of saving Moss and the citizens of his county for the better of justice, mirrors the archetypal hero’s journey in order to atone for his mistakes and and return to his normal life. Bell struggles with Chigurh and the drug-dealers, but he stayed on his mission till the very end. Bell failed his mission but he was still able to go back and gain wisdom from his adventure. When Bell arrives on the seen, he answers a question from a detective,
Not really. A couple of kids from my county that might be sort of involved that ought not to be.
Sort of involved.
Yeah.
Are we talkin kin?
No. Just people from my county. People I'm supposed to be lookin after. (McCarthy, 115)
Even though all of this whole mess came out of his county, he still went through with the whole case and accepted to help Moss. This shows that he went through all the way till the end of his hero’s journey and even though he failed Moss, Bell stayed through the whole case this time instead of leaving his comrades, like he did in the war. After Moss’s case he learned that he had to live life in the present and forget the past, which would be the elixir a hero would gain from the return. After returning to his ordinary world, Bell started to realized that he was a hero, “There was always some part of me that wanted to be in charge. Pretty much insisted on it. Wanted people to listen to what I had to say. But there was apart of me too that just wanted to pull everybody back in the boat. If I've tried to cultivate anything it's been that. I think we are all of us ill prepared for what is to come and I dont care what shape it takes. And whatever comes my guess is that it will have small power to sustain us.”(McCarthy, 178). Bell explaining that there is a part of him that wants to help, show that he has returned to the ordinary world by wanting to save society again, completing the cycle. A hero always tries to put justice where he can, Bell placed justice on Moss’ case by partly completing it