True Grit And Ray From Charles Portis 's The Dog Of The South Show Devotion

Later on the story Mattie experiences her grandfather?s death, which taught her to stand up for herself. After all of the hardships that Mattie and Grandfather faced out on their own, they came back to a Philadelphia very unalike the one they had left, and their coffeehouse home was no different. It was completely robbed of almost everything and shards of glass were everywhere. Although this did not stop two thieves from coming in and killing grandfather when he tried to fight back. Mattie did not take this well however. After Grandfather fainted, she gashed the robber?s shoulder with her granddad?s sword which sent him running down the street with Mattie chasing him close behind. This event clearly shows that Mattie learned to stand up for herself against higher authority, which is a big part of adulthood.

When undertaking a mission, a person is often driven to reach a goal or achievement. Occasionally, people commit themselves to a task that may seem impossible, but complete it anyways. The force that drives people like Farah Ahmedi, who escaped her war torn country on a prosthetic leg, Aengus who spent his entire life searching for a girl who he fell for, or John Steinbeck who traveled all throughout the U.S. in a camper with nothing but his dog, is much more powerful than any magic spell or super power. Using determination, you can push through hardships and undertake missions just like Ahmedi, Steinbeck, and Aengus.

Mattie Michael grew up in Tennessee with her family and the father of her child, Butch Fuller. Everyone tells her to avoid him, including Butch himself who warns her saying, “eating cane is like living life. You gotta know when to stop chewing– when to stop trying to wrench every last bit of sweetness out of a wedge…. trick is to spit it out when the wedge is still firm… It’s hard, but you gotta spit it out right then, or you gonna find yourself chewing on nothin’ but straw in that last round” (18). Butch clearly tells her about how he he lives his life, and his issue with staying, yet, Mattie makes the mistake of getting herself involved which leads to her being impregnated by him. This results in her father savagely beating her to the point where she has to flee to Chicago and start her life alone raising her son. Though, Mattie gets through all of this and finds herself in the grace of Ms. Eva who shelters her. Then, after getting the house after Ms. Eva’s death,

In the book Mattie is definitely a strong character. When Taylor meets Mattie she is surprised. Back in Pittman, where Taylor is from a woman would never own and run a tire store all by herself. Mattie may not be gaining much

The next major event is Mattie hiring US Marshall Rooster Cogburn to hunt down Chaney and bring him back to Ft Smith to hang for the murder of her father. As it turns out, just after she hired Rooster, a Texas Ranger shows up in Ft Smith, by the name of LaBoeuf, who is also on the trail of Chaney for the murder of a State Senator in Texas. He meets up with Rooster, and when the latter learns of the much larger reward being offered from people in Texas, he agrees to let LaBoeuf team up with he and

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

Angela Duckworth in the book Grit, makes the claim that in order to have grit, you must have passion for what you care about. She explains that having passion for something means each day you will wake up thinking of the same questions you fell asleep thinking about. She also states that in achieving success, having aligned, unified, and ultimate goal. She uses an example of the Hall of Fame baseball player Tom Seaver. He had an overall goal to be the best pitcher of all time and the other aspects of his life were dedicated to that goal. “Pitching determines when I eat, when I go to bed, and what I do when i'm awake.” (63). Tom has baseball as his passion and he is obsessed for it. He is willing to give up other things in his life for the overall

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,

"You can get a fugitive warrent for Tom Chaney and go after him...on top of that I will give you a fifty-dollar reward," Matties says (Portis 60). In this example and throughout the novel we see Mattie use bribery a lot to help her fulfill her desires. Without the help of Rooster, Mattie would not have been able to catch Tom. This leads to another example of how Mattie abuses her power. When they are off looking for Tom, we see her consistently mention her lawyer to the bandits.

In his number one best selling novel True Grit, Charles Portis writes from the view of a character who has disgraced and lost his family as well as killed his best friend; “If I had received good instruction as a child I would be with my family today and at peace with my neighbors. I hope and pray that all you parents in the sound of my voice will train up your children in the way they should go” (qtd Guilds, 600). The character’s regretful remarks reveal a deep truth regarding the lives and development of America’s future generations. The 2003 Pediatrics Report also emphasizes the magnitude of parents’ guidance on their children stating, “Families are the most central and enduring influence in children’s lives regardless of their education, composition, income, or values”. However, society’s shifting values and ever-changing trend in the dynamics of the American family necessitate a greater effort in acceptance and reconciliation.

Marshal Cogburn meets a Texas Ranger named LaBoeuf, who has been tracking Tom Chaney for months, who forces himself upon Rooster’s and Mattie’s quest. Both Rooster and LaBoeuf start out disliking Mattie because of her self-centered, know-it-all attitude, however through out their journey Mattie begins to change her ways. Her turning point is at the end of the story when she is trapped in the bottom of a pit and cannot escape. Mattie is forced to accept help from Rooster and LaBoeuf, yelling “Help! … I need help!” (Portis 211) She allows them to hoist her out of the well and rescue her from the snakes. However, Mattie is bitten by a venomous snake and symbolically looses her arm because she was not willing to ask for help earlier. By accepting help from others, and avenging her father’s death by killing Tom Chaney, Mattie is reborn and starts a second life with a new perspective. We hear from Mattie later in life that she never got married, which shows that while she did go through a rebirth, she still carries some of her past baggage. Mattie does, however, try to reconnect with Rooster, showing that she did form a strong connection with him during the journey, which would have never happened if she did not have the second birth experience. Mattie opened up through out the story allowing herself to change, but did not lose herself during the

Mattie should go to the Territory because she proved that she can handle the hardships that she will face by showing her tenacity. Mattie displays her tenacity in a scene where Rooster, the marshall that was hired to take on the case that Mattie wants to embark on, is forcefully trying to indicate the fact that the trip will be dangerous and that Mattie shouldn’t go with him and that she should leave him alone, and that she will only be a distraction. Mattie is insisting that she must go and she can handle it and have done such in other situations. Rooster says, “I cannot go up against Ned Pepper’s band and try to look after a baby at one and the same time.” Mattie responds, “I am not baby. You will not have to worry about me.” Rooster replies,

In the novel True Grit, Mattie Ross is a fourteen years old girl who has decided to “leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father's blood” (9). The theme of revenge appears in a particular type of plot commonly found in western stories, which are called revenge stories. In this novel, the main character is fully dedicated to her goal, which is to avenge her father’s killing. Compared to Rooster, who is helping Mattie for money and compared to Laboeuf who is aiming for justice, Mattie’s motive is revenge. However, she knows that her goal is different from the two others, but she also knows that the end goal is the same. She wants the killer of Frank Ross, Tom Chaney, to pay for his crime. She wants to bring him back to Fort Smith, where she wants to see him being hanged. She wants justice to be given and she “[has] hopes that the marshals will get him soon” (p.34). However, her desire for revenge is bigger than it is for justice. She “intend to kill Tom Chaney with [her fathers gun] if the law fails to do so” (p.63). She also wants Tom Chaney to know that he is being punished for killing her father. At the end of the adventure, Mattie looses her arm, which is a consequence of her revenge. This shows that revenge is brutal and that it has a cost and consequences. Thus, the theme of revenge is obviously a central them of the

Dedicated. – To be loyal, one must be dedicated to their characteristic. They must be success driven, timely and organized in EVERY situation. If the loyal person is only loyal to one person, or in only some situations, they are not truly a loyal person.