The Hero's Journey In True Grit By Charles Portis

If you went off on a quest would you come back a changed person? “The Hero’s Journey isn’t just a pattern from myth. It’s the pattern of life, growth, and experience for all of us”(Harris and Thompson 49). Charles Portis is the author of True Grit, a western novel that takes place through the Indian Territory in Arkansas. In the novel True Grit, the character Mattie Ross, shows an interesting example of “The Hero’s Journey.” As we read we learn she is very outspoken and strong willed, she always wants things to be her way. Mattie shows us a great example of being very independent at the age of fourteen, but after her journey does she truly change as a person?

“I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life” (Portis 11). Mattie Ross goes on a journey to find her father’s killer with the help of two companions, Rooster Cogburn and Leboeuf. Leaving Fort Smith, they set out into the Indian Territory to track down Tom Chaney and seek revenge for killing Mattie’s father, she claims, “I would not rest easy until that Louisiana cur was roasting and screaming in hell!” (Portis 24)

At the beginning of her journey she is confronted

The charge exploded and sent a lead ball of justice, too long delayed, into the criminal head of Tom Chaney” (Portis 204). Right as she had fired the gun it knocked her right over into the pit that was directly behind her. Mattie exclaims “Help! Laboeuf! Can you hear me!” (Portis 205) She laid there stuck with no one around to help her, the fall had broken her arm and eventually she got bit by a rattlesnake. Rooster and Laboeuf finally got her out of the pit and raced her back to seek medical attention, Mattie lived but had lost half an arm after avenging her father’s