The Major Events of the Novel True Grit, by Charles Portis.

Soon after being deserted on the road, grandfather comes down with a summer grippe and becomes helpless. Mattie then needs to take care of them both by finding food and water. This shows responsibility because she not only had to take care of herself, but of her grandfather too with no help from anyone, and no one to tell her what to do.

Grit, what is this? Is it success, is it failure, or is it talent? As Angela Duckworth said “Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day-in and day-out. Not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years. And working really hard to make that future a reality. Grit is living life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint.” Grit is a combination of strength, persistence, focus, and dedication that helps a person to maintain the optimism and discipline needed to persevere in their goals even if they are head to head with failure. Grit does not depend on talent, IQ, or success. Grit is the ability to fail and learn from your mistake, in order to come back next

At the start of the movie, there are two of the many gangs in the five points prepping for a brawl to see who would control the five points. Amsterdam Vallon walks with his father, the leader of the Dead Rabbits Gang, to Paradise square where the brawl would take place. Bill “The Butcher” Cutting, the leader of the Bowery Boys, leads his gang to the square. The fight ensues Bill has eventually killed Priest Vallon which ensured that the Bowery boys would control five points. Amsterdam is sent away, he returns years later from prison. He wants revenge for his father’s death years earlier, he knows he has to defeat Bill from the inside so he joins Bill as his assistant. Amsterdam falls for smart thief Jenny. Amsterdam tries to kill Bill, but fails and is wounded by Bill. Jenny nurses him back to health. Amsterdam publicly announces his return to five points by hanging a dead rabbit in the square, Bill sends a gang member to investigate and is killed by Amsterdam and hung in the square. In vengeance, Bill beats Johnny and puts him on a pike in the square forcing Amsterdam to put down suffering Johnny. Amsterdam challenges Bill to a duel in the square just as a riot breaks out, and the military is sent in to control the rioters, Bill is wounded from cannon shrapnel. Amsterdam kills Bill, Amsterdam then leaves with Jenny and they move together to San Francisco.

James M. McPherson sets out to discover what motivated the Confederate and Union soldiers to continue fighting in the Civil War in his book What They Fought For. McPherson analyses nearly a thousand letters, journals, and diary of Union and Confederate soldiers to determine what urged them to fight is this defining American Conflict. McPherson reads and groups together the common thoughts of the everyday soldier, from their letters and journals that none of which had been subjected to any sort of censorship, in that time period. He then generalizes the motivations that they used to fight for their country. Whether it be for slavery or for the Union, the author views both sides of the fighting to analysis their ideological issues, how deep their belief coursed through their veins to continue fighting, and how the soldiers held their convictions close to heart in the time of war.

Mattie is a strong self confident mechanic, she pushes through the hardships and helps her friends do the same. Taylor arrives in Tucson, Arizona, with two flat tires, little to no money, and a small childtoddler given to her by a stranger. UMattie takes a look upon seeing Taylor,M having a rough time, Mattieshe invites her inside for some coffee and juice. (Chapter 3) When Mattie first meets Taylor, she sees that she is

The Sand Creek Massacre was one of the most defenseless and uncivilized massacres. The author of John Smith’s testimony prepared this document to shine light on the truth of the Sand Creek massacre. The massacre occurred on November 29th, 1864. Although there is no known number of casualties, it is estimated that around two hundred Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians were killed during this event. There are many different stories told about the events that took place. It is with reason to believe that John Smith’s testimony proves to be the most accurate.

Mattie confirms, it is her fathers body, she declares, “That is my father. Tom Chaney would pay for this! (24).” This is her quest to reclaim the injustice in her life. The threshold is next, this the jumping off point in Mattie’s journey. “the initiate may encounter people, or situations which block her passage into the journey. The two men who were hired to get the culprit didn’t want her presence, they left on the journey alone, then try to turn her into the sherriff, for being a runaway and told the man who tried to stop her “I have business across the river (106)”. Above all, Mattie still insisted she go. Mattie stated, “We hit the river running…we were up and free I reined in (107) .” These situations, display that she was being blocked on her passage into the journey. This is brings her to Choctaw Nation, the initiate begins the journey into the unknown.

Mattie does not beat around the bush when it comes to justice. She has a fixed view on how law should be carried out against Tom Chaney and stops at nothing to achieve this. Put simply, Mattie wants him dead, and she wants him to know that he is dying as a result of him killing her father. This view and interpretation of justice closely resembles the “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” philosophy of the Code of Hammurabi where the life of Tom Chaney must be payed for

Mattie Ross clearly portrays the hero of a quest novel. To begin, a hero gets a call that leads them into their journey. The call happens as the basis for the task they wish to achieve. They tend to get the call which bases their entire adventure, and allows the character to become a hero. Mattie receives a call for adventure when hearing the news that Tom Chaney killed her father, Frank Ross. After hearing about her father’s death, Mattie will stop at nothing to get revenge on his killer. Not many people know Mattie’s father, so, Tom Chaney does not have a group of Marshals after him immediately. Mattie claims that her father “was just trying to do that short

Set in the American frontier in the latter half of the eighteenth century, the tale of True Grit reads like the diary of a precocious, headstrong, and mature fourteen year old girl. Mattie Ross, the main character, recruits the callous, no nonsense U.S. Marshal Rooster, Cogburn to aid her in tracking down Tom Chaney, her father’s killer. Cocky, Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, needs Cogburn to guide him through Indian Territory because he too seeks justice, as well as a monetary reward, for capturing the same outlaw. Mattie demonstrates her strength of will as well as her resourcefulness, as the troupe takes on the unexpected in their adventurous wilderness journey. The three main characters; Mattie Ross, Rooster Cogburn, and Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, all demonstrate true grit in some similar and some dissimilar ways in both the 1968 novel by Charles Portis and the 2010 film adaptation by the Coen brothers.

When Mattie is to be sent away, Ethan and Mattie grow desperate looking for a way out of their impossible situation. They decide that it is better to die in a sledding accident together than live their lives apart. Ethan hesitates slightly, “But in a flash

The first chapter goes back in history and sets up the story and setting. It was the eighteenth century and the Americans were beginning to invade the lands west of the Mississippi River. This caused problems because even though Americans saw the lands as an unoccupied

Mattie is now in the initiation step of the journey, where she will go through four parts; the first part is the challenges and the second is the abyss. Anywhere that Mattie went she faced challenges as how the hero’s journey’s writes, “Whichever direction the voyage takes… [she] puts [herself] more and more at risk, emotionally and physically…. always seem to strike the initiate’s greatest weakness: [her] poorest skills… [Her] most vulnerable emotions” (Harris and Thompson 51). A challenge that we see Mattie puts herself at risk and show her weakness is when see faces Tom Chaney and says,

very important matters. Ducky encourages him to keep trying to talk with his dad. Then Gibbs

From the beginning of the novel, the reader acquires a few key things about the protagonist. Foremost, the members in her community refuse to understand her need to abandon her home and family to go on a manhunt. That point is clear from the beginning of the novel when Mattie states that “people do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and […] to avenge her father’s blood,” (Portis 11). Typically, when it came to justice-seeking that was a job build for a man. A woman was simply too delicate to take on such a task, nevertheless, Mattie saw the opportunity to punish Tom Chaney for the crimes he committed. Focused on making justice happen, she let go of any preconceived notion of how a lady should act and where her place in society was. Forsaking the need for a comfortable life at