True Grit : The Role Of Women In Mattie's Novels

The autobiographical essays in “The Girls in My Town” by Angela Morales creates her violent personality over time, ranging from childhood to adulthood. As a little girl she always took everything from everyone dealing with bullies and her crazy father. The type of violence she deals with is domestic and emotional abuse from her father. She goes on to write about her parent’s appliance store and how she escaped from it developing a different personality. She as well writes about her experiences in the bowling alley that she feels made her safer. She remembers fighting for equal rights for girls as a sixth grader, calling the cops when her parents fought. Morales did not live an easy live she had to deal with the daily girl problems during her time and the fact of her parents being divorced which she described as an excellent relationship when in reality it was not.

Throughout literary history, there have been a majority of stories based on males and their adventures. But what about fictional works based on strong women? In Ancient Greece, Medea was focused on a leading woman who was driven and ambitious. A more modern film, Legally Blonde, shows a girl persistently going against the flow to make dreams come true. Today, I am going to show how the plot and personalities of Elle Wood from Legally Blonde and Medea are alike using their shameful break ups, revenge, friendships, obstacles, and how this makes them good heroes.

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.

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

Moreover, her purpose is to set the events in motion, which occur in the novel, and evoke Ethan to express his emotions to her. Two significant quotes that provide an insight into Mattie’s personality are “ Mattie blushed to the roots of her hair and pulled her needle rapidly twice or thrice through her work, insensibly drawing the end of it away from him” (Wharton 59) and “She laughed with pleasure, her head tilted back, the lamplight sparkling on her lips and teeth. ‘That would be lovely, Ethan!” (Wharton 58), which reveal her timidness, and outgoing

The presentation of femininity in Doctorow's Welcome to Hard Times is a strong departure from the heroine of Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage. Through the metaphor of the gun as the embodiment of masculinity, both authors closely examine the complexities of the sexualized relationship of a frontierswoman to the men of her society. Doctorow mirrors the tensions present in Grey's novel though Molly acts as an extraordinarily different vision of what the West required of a woman than Jane Withersteen. Both novels reach a sexual climax as the heroine engages the men of her society in a violent action of blood and birth.

conception of productive masculinity; many follow in the tradition of early-twentieth-century home front novels by women to consider the value of female work, in wartime and beyond […] and most conclude with a look to the future (which is now the present) and a sense of promise that is decidedly free from irony. (21-22)

In Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate and John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, the female characters are presented in nontraditional ways for the times in which the novels are set. Each novel shows a clear distinction between the male and female characters, and it would make sense to feel a feminist vibe from the authors at certain points in the novels. In these novels, the female characters use the traditional distinction between gender roles to change the dynamics of their families and function within the novel.

The Western genre can be a variety of works, including texts and films, which are set in the American Old West during the latter half of the nineteenth century. This genre primarily focuses on the life of a cowboy with gunfights, a good guy and a bad guy, and the usually ending of riding off into the sunset. The common misconception that is shown throughout the Western genre is that the male characters are always the hero, whereas the female characters are impediments and less valuable. This relates to Susan Lee Johnson’s quote on how the Western genre always portrays One Big Myth and One True Hero. She states that “Much is held in abeyance when {the} impulse to find One Big Myth and to indentify its One True Hero is indulged.” Johnson

The majority of literature at this time emphasized women’s domestic and religious roles , and those women who deviated from these socially accepted and designated roles, were not viewed as positively as those who adhered to societal norms . American Literature depicted flawless images of women in a flawed world, making it especially difficult for real and fictional women alike. This negative perception is seen in numerous American Literature works, but the disparity in treatment of these women is most obvious when the characters are compared to the more passive and docile female characters that were considered to be the ideal representations of American women at that period of time. This negative perception of women can be best demonstrated

    Terry McMillan grabs her audience's attention by filling her books with romance, tension, and sex:  "...it's the roiling currents among family, friends and lovers that McMillan is most comfortable writing about" (Skow 77).  Her customary characters are strong African-American women who are well off; many have jobs, families, and security.  Although these women seemingly have all these necessities, they long for more.  As they experience life, they embark on an "eternal search for connection" (Donahue n. pag.).  They create bonds with friends, siblings and children, but, above all, McMillan stresses their relationships with men.  McMillan's maincharacters need these close ties to other people to survive

When people are going through events in his or her life they look for a way to express or find something that relates to the feelings that they have. Majority of the time these feelings are expressed through literature. An example is the archetypes that can be found throughout literature. In the British Middle Ages, the people were grouped into different social classes using the feudal system. Society was mainly broken into two separate groups, the nobles, and the peasants. However, there was also a subset group, which maintained the women. Women were the lowest of the low because they were considered to be evil because of what happened with Adam and Eve in the Bible. It is said that since “…Eve was created from Adam 's rib and, having

What the narrator focuses most in this novel, is the inner strength the women use and its source, as well as their courage and determination not to give in.

Women is the maker, the mother , the one who keeps the whole human race thriving. Women do so many different roles and at the same time the most vulnurable being of all. The role of women in society is constantly questioned and for centuries women have struggled to find their place in a world that is predominantly male oriented. In the contemporary age women got many opportunities in all field, even though women face many struggles in their life. Throughout history, young women have been scrutinized with regard to their attitudes, behavior, sexuality and general conduct.