What are the important themes in No Country for Old Men?

An additional theme of the story is our natural tendency to romanticize the past.

Sheriff Bell has dealt with some serious criminals in his time, but nothing quite like the demonic force of nature that is Anton Chigurh. There was always violence back in the day, of course, but nothing like as senseless as that purveyed by Chigurh and his ilk. For Bell, this is a symptom of a society that's quickly going to hell in a handcart. There's no sense of community anymore; people no longer look out for each other as they used to back in the good old days.

When Bell first started out as a sheriff, criminals tended to be immoral rather than amoral. That is to say, they still retained a code of morality even as they transgressed the values of respectable society. Chigurh, on the other hand, has no values whatsoever. He's an amoral psychopath who will destroy anything and anyone who gets in his way.

Bell's romanticized view of the past acts as a distorting prism, making the truth much less complex than it is: the better to understand and deal with it. Looking at the past through rose-tinted spectacles is a tacit admission that Bell can no longer handle living in the contemporary world, a world inhabited by dangerous, violent psychopaths like Chigurh.

There are many different themes in No Country for Old Men, but perhaps the most important is the theme of evil. Evil exists throughout the narrative, and the characters seem powerless to do anything about it. Anton Chigurh is evil personified, and Bell's actions, words, and reflections constantly remind the reader that evil exists, and is a powerful force in the world. Death and killing are two other themes. Both Moss, Wells, and Bell are all war veterans, no strangers to killing, and the drug war they are caught up in does not seem foreign territory to either of them. In fact, Moss and Wells are convinced of their own ability to escape the killing. Yet death stops both of them. Another, more subtle theme is love, personified by Carla Jean Moss and Loretta Bell.

How are the themes of 'loss' and 'survival' portrayed in No Country for Old Men?

I once described this novel, to a student, as being not about happy or sad endings, but about what was left of the characters when it was over. "No Country For Old Men" definitely has a tone of disillusionment and fatalism that give rise to many examples of loss and survival in a semi-cyclical relationship.

Spiritual Loss/Loss of Faith: Bell says at one point,

I always thought when I got older that God would sort of come into my life in some way. He didnt.

Bell hasn't exactly lost anything (since he's implying God wasn't in his life, so he had nothing to lose) but this is more of a sense of disappointment; Bell was probably looking forward to peace and guidance that never came.

Bell's decision to retire can also be seen as a loss of faith in both himself, and the role of law enforcement.

Cultural Loss:

These old people I talk to, if you could of told em that there would be people on the streets of our Texas towns with green hair and bones in their noses speakin a language they couldnt even understand, well, they just flat out wouldnt of believed you. But what if you'd of told em it was their own grandchildren?

This quote comes amid a passage speaking of disillusionment and a change in times. The point is that America is becoming unrecognizable to Bell and those like him.

Financial Loss: Loss of money is the reason for Chigurh's entrance into the story, and in the final paragraph, Bell mentions dreaming of having lost money that his father gave him. Money is most likely a MacGuffin which represents responsibility, success, dreams, etc.

Loss of Life: Death appears frequently in the story, and can be thought of as an ultimate loss. Death is one of, if not the primary, consideration for Bell when he decides not to pursue Chigurh when it becomes clear that this will be likely to end with his own death and Chigurh's escape.

Loss of Control Over One's Fate: Chigurh is sometimes depicted as a ghost, and the death that he brings as a force of nature. His conversation with Carla Jean emphasizes his own inability, as well as Carla Jean's, to alter the course of fate; everything is proceeding as it "must".

Everthing I ever thought has turned out different, she said. There aint the least part of my life

I could of guessed. Not this, not none of it.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick