Relationship analyses between Mattie Ross and Rooster Cogburn free essay sample

True grit is a novel that was first published in 1968. It is written by Charles Portis. He served in the Marine Corps during the Korean War and has worked as a reporter for the New York Herald – Tribune, and was also its London bureau chief. He is also the author of four other novels: Norwood, Masters of Atlantis, The Dog of the South and Gringos. True Grit is an adventure story about a fourteen year old girl named Mattie Ross’s seek of revenge for her deceased father which was shot in cold blood by the villain; Tom Chaney. To fulfill her need for vengeance she has to seek out the help of two men. A well-known Bounty Hunter/ Marshal named Rooster Cogburn, and a Texas Ranger named LaBoeuf. The story takes the three of them out on a dangerous journey through the cruel and unforgiving nature of the Wild West in search for Chaney, facing not only the challenges of brutal wilderness, but also the challenge of their relationships. Throughout the story, problems arise when the three highly different personalities clash together, but in the relation of two of them, Mattie Ross and Rooster Cogburn one can see a clear development as the story progress. This essay is going to examine how the two of them manage to go from bitter partners to somehow becoming very attached to each other. Mattie Ross: The first impression one get from Mattie Ross is that she is a very independent young girl. This comes quite clear as she leaves her family at home to take care of business all on her own. She has taken care of her family for a long time, handling their financial business as well as other personal matters. The death of her father makes her in charge of everything that goes on at home and forces her to be even more the mature one in the family. This is a task that suits her well. Mattie also comes off as an idealist. She is quite a perfectionist and wants things to be done nice and clean. She believes in the old way of living. A great example of this is in the end when she attends the circus where Rooster is supposed to work, but to her great disappointment, she got the news that he passed away just a few days ago from two of the men Rooster was working with. One of the men rises from his seat to tell her the news while the other one does not bother to lift a leg. As she is about to leave she yells out; â€Å"Keep your seat, trash! † She was not too impressed by the way he paid his respect to herself and Rooster. She has also not yet before this trip been experiencing the reality of the world. The first time she experienced death first hand was when Moon and Quincy died at the cabin. All in all, Mattie Ross comes off as an independent, mature, stubborn, naive, foolhardy but very thrifty young girl. All of these attributes makes her a very hard person to deal with, but supplies her with a fair chance to succeed at her task. Rooster Cogburn: Rooster Cogburn is described as a fearless, one eyed U. S marshal with â€Å"True Grit†. He’s the father of a dead son and has no close family left. He has had two relationships which both have gone bad. This has made him independent and somewhat of a lone wolf. He is a realist and knows a lot about the real world. He has been involved in a number of shootings and killed several people in them. This has made him resolve to drinking whiskey. Whiskey can be seen as a lonely man’s drink which describes his situation well. The first impressions one get from Rooster is from the court meeting in the beginning of the story. Here he had to answer to an incident that happened earlier where he had to kill some men in order to defend himself. During the court meeting he answers the prosecutor both quickly and witty but never gives an accurate explanation. This shows that he is being careless of his actions and not a very stubborn man. Comparison and relationship development of Mattie Ross and Rooster Cogburn: The development of the relationship that evolve between the child Mattie Ross and the drunken but courageous Rooster Cogburn is a somewhat curious one. In the beginning they both seem like they cannot cope with the company of each other; When Mattie meets Rooster for the first time it was right after one of his many court meetings. She tells him about her situation and asks him for his assistance in revenging her father and bringing Chaney to justice for a fee of fifty dollars. She is dismissed right away by an annoyed and unsettled Rooster as he was in no mood talking business with a fourteen year old girl and was probably still startled by the intense interrogations in court. He also questioned how someone that young would have fifty dollars to spend on such an affair. This conversation set the mood between the two, and was to Mattie not a very satisfactory one. She was expecting a more positive response. After this Mattie shows that she is not the kind that gives up right away. She immediately decides to pay Rooster a visit at it his current home. She continues to convince Rooster to join her but Rooster is still not sure whether her intentions are trustworthy. In the end she manages to bargain a deal with him for a hundred dollars, he said; â€Å"if I’m going up against Lucky Ned Pepper I will need a hundred dollars†. She accepts the deal even though she feels taken advantage of. This shows that despite her stubbornness she is willing to do whatever it takes to take down Tom Chaney, and shows her desperate situation. Even though she felt like she had been ripped off in the deal she was happy that Rooster did agree to go with her. Later there were a turn of events as Rooster had figured it would be best to bring Laboeuf on for the ride and this did not appeal very much to Mattie as she were not fond of Laboeufs way of being. This made her upset again as this was not her original plan. They also did not think Mattie were fit and old enough to join them on this dangerous journey through the wilderness. That made Mattie very angry and did not help with the already challenged relationship she were having with Rooster. Mattie does nonetheless come up with a plan to follow Rooster and Laboeuf when they depart from the city. The plan works out fine until she has to cross a river with a ferry. Rooster had convinced the ferry-man that he was not to let the young girl over. Nonetheless, thrifty as she was, she forced herself and her pony over the river despite the danger in the situation. When she had successfully crossed the river, Rooster commented it like this; â€Å"That’s some horse†. This comment may very well be a disguised compliment actually meant for Mattie, showing that he is getting increasingly impressed over her willpower. After this she is still not accepted to join their journey, but she continues to follow them despite their unwillingness to cooperate with her. In a planned ambush Rooster and Laboeuf sets up later on, she gets cruelly dismounted by Laboeuf and spanked as well. Rooster saves her from this, pulling his gun at Laboeuf, as he did not tolerate his cruel way of punishing her. This is the first time Rooster shows compassion towards Mattie, and can be seen as a turning point in their relationship. If one were to compare Mattie Ross and Rooster one can see there is quite a clash of personalities. Rooster may be as independent as Mattie is, but not as mature. He is an old war veteran and takes big pride of his past achievements. The way he brags about his old war stories to Mattie shows that he is trying to prove his worth to her. He knows inside that he is getting old and is not what he once was, but he is still unwilling to let go of his way of life. You can see some examples of these incidents in different places in the story, example; when Rooster lashes out at Laboeuf for his past achievements as a Texas Ranger while they were riding to town. He did this to put Laboeuf in a bad light for Mattie. Later he again tries to prove himself; when he throws some of their food rations in the air and attempts to hit them with his gun. He did this while he was drunk and did not hit them very well. Near the end of the story he confronts four of the villains in a heroic fashion as he charged them all by himself on a field facing very bad odds of surviving. He did this even though he knew these guys were not the ones they were hunting in the first place. This may have been because he knew Mattie Ross was watching him, and he wanted to impress her and prove to himself that he still had â€Å"True Grit†. The story has a dramatic and nice ending to it when Rooster has to save Mattie from a poisonous snakebite by carrying her all the way where the incident happened to a doctor far away. By doing this Rooster shows that he has become attached to Mattie and almost ends up giving his life for her. When he finally arrives to the doctor he comments; â€Å"I have grown old†, realizing that he is no longer the young man he used to be. This did ultimately trigger his decision to retire from his work and change his type of work. Even though he got to the doctor in time to save her life, she did lose her arm. There are questions to ask why Rooster chose to leave Mattie before she got her consciousness back. Maybe because he felt he had failed her? This is an unanswered question none can really know the answer to.