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True Grit Analysis

Decent Essays

Chelsee Graham
Professor Ray
English 1510
28 November 2017
True Grit Themes
The interesting, engaging novel, True Grit, is a story told from a first-person point of view of Mattie Ross. She is faced with many challenges on her journey to receive justice and seek retribution on her father’s death. She uses her unique characteristics to make others follow along with her plan, as she trusts no one. She is described as having true grit, because she is someone who has one goal and will stick to it no matter what issues, or setbacks occur. There are several themes that can be perceived from reading this novel. A theme is the authors “big idea”, what they are trying to express to their readers. There are often more themes than just one. These themes can be expressed directly or indirectly and can either be a big part of the stories plot, or just a minor one. I noticed several themes that stood out to me throughout the novel, including revenge, mortality, and moral characteristics.
True Grit is the story of a fourteen-year-old girl named Mattie Ross. Mattie Ross was always advising her father, Frank, to buy the ponies low and sell high. Frank set off with his hired hand, Tom Chaney to buy some ponies. Along the way, Chaney made an unwise decision to get drunk, gamble away his paycheck, and then try to get the money back. In effort to stop this mess, Frank was shot by the cowardly, Tom Chaney, in the town of Fort Smith, Arkansas. After receiving the news, Mattie understands what she must do. She then decides to go on a mission to search for Tom Chaney and finally get her revenge. She understands that she cannot do this alone, so she decides to hire a U.S. Marshal, Rooster Cogburn to go on this journey with her. They then ran into a Texas Ranger, LaBoeuf, who was also down to murder Tom Chaney. Along the way, Mattie faces many challenges and overcomes obstacles. She learns more about the other’s personality and begins to earn respect towards them. At the beginning of the journey, she did not know whether she could trust them. As the story moved along and she learned more about them, she slowly began to trust them. She also gained the respect from Cogburn and LaBoeuf. They believed that she was incapable of going on

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