Embittered by society's evolving corruption, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell plays the official hero who clings to ancient traditions and remembers the old days in No Country for Old Men old by Cormac McCarthy. Illusions of a peaceful utopia during the time his grandfather Jack was a sheriff led Bell to look at the world with hopeless eyes; a world on its knees with only one explanation for its end: Satan. Not necessarily a religious man, Sheriff Bell, when asked if he believes in Satan, observes: “It explains a lot of things that otherwise have no explanation. Or no, they don't for me” (218). In No County for Old Men, Sheriff Bell is determined to save Llewellyn Moss to prove that justice can be served in a world steeped in decadence. Over the course of the book and film adaptation, audiences see Sheriff Bell, a troubled old man, sink deeper into his bitterness and his hope fade in the Texas heat. The book, No Country for Old Men, switches from the first person to the third. person's perspective; the first-person perspective comes only from Sheriff Bell. It is with these first-person accounts that the reader understands why Bell is saddened by the new world around him. He says he read a story in the newspaper about teachers responding to a survey on what the biggest problems with teaching in schools were; the biggest problems these teachers could mention were: “talking in class and running in the corridors. Chewing gum. Copying homework." The newspaper report then states that forty years later the survey was given to teachers and the biggest problems were: "Rape, arson, murder. Drugs. Suicide." Bell is horrified by this story published in the newspaper and is incredulous when people tell him that he is simply "getting old" with... middle of the paper... ultimate failure of not being able to protect Moss and his wife, Carla Jean, it can be said that the decision to quit irritates Bell more than anything else when he narrates, "so you could tell me I haven't changed at all" (282). Ellis reminds Bell how his Uncle Mac died: killed by Indians in the old days saying Mac went out with a rifle. Ellis is letting Ed Tom know that things were violent in the old days too. Ultimately, Bell's decision to quit is the opposite of what Moss decided to do when faced with the choice to quit and Bell's decision leaves him with his life. Bell's wife, Loretta, asks him if he plans to resign while he's ahead; Bell, whose rite of passage is written all over the story and concludes that there is no country for old men, replies: “no mother, my goal is just to leave. I'm not ahead at all. I never will be” (298).