True Grit

by

Charles Portis

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on True Grit makes teaching easy.

True Grit: Chapter 7 Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
The next morning, Mattie wakes up after Rooster and LaBoeuf and scales down a bank toward a small creek to get some water, taking her father’s pistol with her just in case. When she reaches the stream, she sees a man giving water to a group of horses on the other side. “The man was none other than Tom Chaney!” she writes. Before she can run away, Chaney turns around and points a rifle at her, saying that he recognizes her as Frank Ross’s daughter. When he asks her what she’s doing so far from home, she puts her hand in her empty water bucket and brings out her father’s dragoon revolver, saying, “I am here to take you back to Fort Smith.” She also says there’s a large group of “officers” just up the hill, but he assures her he won’t come with her.
Finally, Mattie catches up with Chaney. It is fitting that she’s the one to stumble upon him, since her thirst for revenge is what drives the novel. Unsurprisingly, she has no problem pulling a gun on him, once more revealing her courage and “grit,” both of which Chaney probably doesn’t expect. Mattie doesn’t pay attention to whether or not she’s safe, instead focusing on what she came to do: bring down Tom Chaney.
Themes
Revenge Theme Icon
Maturity, Independence, and Expectations Theme Icon
Violence, Courage, and Intelligence Theme Icon
“If you refuse to go I will have to shoot you,” Mattie tells Chaney. “Oh?” he responds. “Then you had better cock your piece.” Looking down, Mattie sees she hasn’t prepared her pistol, so she cocks it using both thumbs. “All the way back till it locks,” Chaney coaches. When she asks once more if he’s going to come, he says, “I think not. It is just the other way around. You are going with me.” Mattie then shoots him in the side of the stomach. When she does this, however, the force of the shot makes her stumble, and she loses hold of the revolver. Scrambling to retrieve it, she hears Rooster and LaBoeuf calling her name, and she yells to let them know where she is. Meanwhile, the other bandits shout from atop the opposite bank.
When Chaney instructs Mattie how to cock her pistol, he does so in a patronizing way, clearly assuming that she doesn’t have the courage to shoot him. This is a miscalculation, of course, since Mattie is someone who defies what society expects of little girls—and she shoots Chaney in the stomach without hesitation. She still isn’t very experienced when it comes to handling weapons, however, which is why she finds herself discombobulated by the blast of the gun.
Themes
Revenge Theme Icon
Maturity, Independence, and Expectations Theme Icon
Violence, Courage, and Intelligence Theme Icon
Quotes
“I did not think you would do it,” Chaney says, adding that he thinks he has a broken rib. In response, Mattie reminds him that he killed her father, and he admits that he “regret[s] that shooting.” “I was drinking and I was mad through and through,” he says. “Nothing has gone right for me.” Just then, he reaches for a large piece of wood, and Mattie pulls the trigger once again, but the revolver doesn’t fire, since the “hammer snap[s] on a bad percussion cap.” When she reloads, the same thing happens. By the time she’s trying to load it once again, it’s too late, since Chaney throws the piece of wood at her, sending her down to the ground. He then approaches and picks her up, “slapping” her, “cursing” her father, and stealing her gun.
Chaney is shocked that Mattie shoots him, since he assumed that a little girl wouldn’t have the “grit” necessary to fire at a grown man. However, he still manages to get the best of her, though only because her pistol misfires. It’s worth noting that this isn’t Mattie’s fault—in fact, one could argue that Rooster is the one to blame for this, since he wasted Mattie’s bullets while shooting the rat in Lee’s grocery store in Chapter 3. When he reloaded her gun, he did so from a box of mismatched ammunition, evidently filling it with bad rounds.
Themes
Revenge Theme Icon
Maturity, Independence, and Expectations Theme Icon
Violence, Courage, and Intelligence Theme Icon
On the way back to his side of the river, Chaney grabs two of the horses with his free hand, dragging them along with Mattie as Rooster and LaBoeuf run down to the river, though they’re too late. Ned Pepper’s cronies also run toward the river, beating Rooster and LaBoeuf, at which point a shootout takes place. Once atop the hill, Chaney delivers Mattie to Ned, who asks who’s on the other side of the river. “Marshal Cogburn and fifty more officers,” she says, but he threatens to beat her if she lies again, so she tells him it’s Rooster and another man. He then puts her on the ground and places his foot on her neck, yelling, “Rooster, can you hear me? You answer me, Rooster! I will kill this girl!” After a moment, Rooster yells, “The girl is nothing to me! She is a runaway from Arkansas!”
Although Rooster has already proved his loyalty to Mattie, in this moment Portis throws the legitimacy of that loyalty into question. On the one hand, it’s most likely the case that Rooster has to say he doesn’t care about Mattie in order to successfully navigate this negotiation with Ned. On the other hand, it’s also possible that Rooster is telling the truth—after all, he is a complicated man who might not actually care about his friendship with a young girl. In this way, Portis raises the tension and invites readers to question the strength of Mattie and Rooster’s bond.
Themes
Revenge Theme Icon
Collaboration, Companionship, and Loyalty Theme Icon
Violence, Courage, and Intelligence Theme Icon
Quotes
Get the entire True Grit LitChart as a printable PDF.
True Grit PDF
Ned asks Rooster if he should kill Mattie, and Rooster tells him to do what he thinks is “best.” In response, Ned tells him to leave, saying, “If I see you riding over that bald ridge to the northwest I will spare the girl! You have five minutes!” Rooster says five minutes isn’t enough time and tells Ned there will be other marshals coming soon, though he offers to “mislead them for six hours” if Ned gives him Chaney and Mattie. When Ned refuses this offer, though, Rooster agrees to retreat.
It’s worth keeping in mind that Rooster isn’t necessarily used to negotiating with criminals. Instead, he usually uses brute force to defeat them, coming into dangerous situations with his gun already drawn. In this scenario, though, he has no choice but to try to reason with Ned—something he’s clearly not very good at, though this is a particularly difficult dilemma to navigate using words alone.
Themes
Collaboration, Companionship, and Loyalty Theme Icon
Violence, Courage, and Intelligence Theme Icon
While Rooster and LaBoeuf leave, Ned Pepper brings Mattie to the bandits’ camp, which is in a small clearing atop the hill. As he leads her there, Mattie passes the “simpleminded” outlaw Harold Permalee and The Original Greaser Bob. At the campsite, Chaney sits by the fire, inspecting his bullet wound while Farrell Permalee—another bandit—tends to his injury in a brusque, unsympathetic manner. As soon as Chaney sees Mattie, he springs up and dashes toward her, saying he’s going to strangle her. “No, I won’t have it,” Ned says, fending him off and forcing Mattie to sit by the fire, where she eventually asks for—and receives—some bacon. She then explains to Ned that Chaney killed her father and stole his horse. “If I had killed him I would not now be in this fix,” she says. “My revolver misfired twice.” “They will do it,” says Ned.
Rather surprisingly, Ned doesn’t treat Mattie unkindly. He’s rather cordial and casual with her, even going out of his way to protect her from Chaney’s wrath. This is perhaps because he doesn’t have a personal or emotional investment in what’s happening. Mattie is simply a piece of collateral, something he can use to ensure his own safety, so he has no problem treating her with respect, whereas Chaney wants to kill her because she shot him. In this moment, Portis shows readers the cyclical nature of revenge, demonstrating that Chaney (whom Mattie wanted to take revenge on) now wants to take revenge on Mattie, creating a circle of violence and retribution.
Themes
Revenge Theme Icon
Collaboration, Companionship, and Loyalty Theme Icon
Violence, Courage, and Intelligence Theme Icon
Hearing Mattie and Ned’s conversation, Chaney claims he was “shot from ambush,” and when Mattie says this is a lie, he throws a stick into a nearby pit and says, “There is a ball of rattlesnakes down there […] and I am going to throw you in it.” In response, Mattie points out that Ned—his boss—won’t let him, so Chaney reminds Ned that it has been five minutes and there’s still no sign of Rooster on the northwest ridge. Unbothered, Ned says he’ll give Rooster and his companion more time. He then asks Mattie questions about what she has been doing with Rooster, eventually falling into idle conversation about his own affairs, telling her in an offhanded, friendly manner about his recent train robbery. After a while, Farrell points out Rooster and LaBoeuf, who are riding away on the ridge with Blackie walking behind them.
The fact that Chaney is embarrassed to have been shot by Mattie spotlights the ways in which men in the Wild West cling to vain notions of toughness and masculinity, wanting to present themselves as untouchable and ruthless rather than vulnerable. When Mattie shoots him, she not only defies society’s expectations of a little girl, but also challenges Chaney’s macho persona.
Themes
Revenge Theme Icon
Maturity, Independence, and Expectations Theme Icon
Violence, Courage, and Intelligence Theme Icon
Until this moment, Mattie hadn’t stopped to consider that Rooster and LaBoeuf might actually abandon her. “Was this what they called grit in Fort Smith?” she wonders. “We called it something else in Yell County!” As the bandits prepare to leave, Ned forces Chaney to stay behind. Since one of their horses ran away when Mattie shot Chaney, Ned tells him that he’ll send someone to “fetch” him later. “I want you to wait here with the girl. You will be out by dark. We are going to ‘The Old Place’ and you can meet us there,” he says. Mattie says she doesn’t want to stay with Chaney, who she’s certain will kill her, but Ned assures her this won’t happen, telling Chaney that if he hurts Mattie he won’t get his share of the money from the train heist.
In the same way that Rooster and LaBoeuf’s loyalty to Mattie has apparently amounted to nothing, Ned Pepper clearly has no problem abandoning Chaney. By outlining this dynamic, Portis shows that violent and supposedly courageous men like Rooster, LaBoeuf, and Ned Pepper are often disloyal companions.
Themes
Revenge Theme Icon
Maturity, Independence, and Expectations Theme Icon
Collaboration, Companionship, and Loyalty Theme Icon
Violence, Courage, and Intelligence Theme Icon
Quotes
Before they leave, The Original Greaser Bob asks Ned Pepper to divvy up their earnings. Resentfully, Ned obliges, doling out cash to his partners. He then opens the bag of registered mail they stole and finds a number of checks inside. Because he can’t read very well, he asks Mattie if these checks are worth anything, and she tells him they would be valuable if they were signed by the intended recipient, whose signature happens to be printed in a different spot on the checks (since he’s the president of the bank). Ned then forces her to forge the signature using a stick and a mixture of saliva and gunpowder, and though she’s hesitant to break the law, she feels confident nobody will accept such poorly signed checks, so she obeys his orders. Having settled this matter, Ned and the rest of the bandits leave.
Lucky Ned Pepper and his gang are tough, frightening men, but their power is diminished by the fact that they lack certain kinds of basic intelligence. Indeed, their train heist would be somewhat worthless if it weren’t for Mattie, who’s smart enough to identify that the checks they stole are worth quite a lot of money. Of course, their ignorance still gets the best of them, since it’s highly unlikely that they’ll be able to cash these checks. But since they don’t know this, they think they’re going to be rich, completely unaware that their brutal tactics have all been for nothing.
Themes
Violence, Courage, and Intelligence Theme Icon
Sitting by the campfire with Chaney, Mattie heats a can of water, saying she wants to wash the dirt off her hands. When he threatens to throw her in the snake pit after she insults him for being dirty himself, she reminds him that Ned Pepper won’t pay him if he hurts her. “I fear he has no idea of paying me,” Chaney admits. “I believe he has left me, knowing I am sure to be caught when I leave on foot.” He then decides to think over his options, telling Mattie to stop talking and threatening to kill her if she interrupts him. As he ponders his situation, Mattie grabs the can of hot water and throws it on him, dashing away as fast as she can. However, he catches up to her right as she reaches the edge of the clearing.
In this moment, Mattie combines her quick-thinking nature with her bravery, using both violence and intelligence to get the best of Chaney. This, it seems, is a rare combination in True Grit, which is a novel generally populated by people who rely solely on physical displays of aggression. She isn’t quite fast enough to escape Chaney, but this doesn’t change the fact that her original plan is a good one.
Themes
Maturity, Independence, and Expectations Theme Icon
Violence, Courage, and Intelligence Theme Icon
Chaney hits Mattie over the head with his pistol so hard she thinks she’s been shot. Just then, though, she hears LaBoeuf’s voice. “Hands up, Chelmsford!” he shouts, climbing up the backside of the hill with his rifle pointed at Chaney. “Everything is against me,” Chaney says, letting Mattie go. As he puts his hands up, Mattie grabs her pistol out of his belt, and LaBoeuf steers him toward a place on the hill where they can see a wide-open meadow, where Ned Pepper and the other bandits appear in the distance as they ride away. Soon Rooster emerges before them, blocking their path. After confirming that Mattie is all right, he tells the other outlaws to stand aside while he deals with Ned, but Harold, Farrell, and Greaser Bob refuse to do so.
LaBoeuf and Rooster’s triumphant return proves that they actually are loyal to Mattie, who they clearly see as a valuable companion who they can’t simply leave behind. What’s more, their refusal to leave also spells out their determination to bring Ned and Chaney to justice, aligning their thirst for revenge with Mattie’s. LaBoeuf’s crafty decision to hike up the backside of the hill also demonstrates the power of combining intelligence with courage rather than simply using brute force. If LaBoeuf and Rooster had simply charged at Ned and his gang when they first kidnapped Mattie, it’s obvious they wouldn’t have been successful.
Themes
Revenge Theme Icon
Collaboration, Companionship, and Loyalty Theme Icon
Violence, Courage, and Intelligence Theme Icon
Rooster asks Ned if he’d like to be killed now or to wait until he’s hanged in Fort Smith, but Ned only laughs. Rooster puts his horse’s reins in his teeth, takes out two revolvers, and rides directly at the four bandits, shooting as he goes. First, Harold falls to the ground, followed by Farrell. In a characteristically stylistic manner, Greaser Bob lies flat on his horse and rides “wider than the others,” thereby making off with his cash reward. Rooster takes several shotgun “pellets” in the face and around his shoulders, but these are minor injuries. However, his horse is “mortally struck,” and when Rooster tries to keep riding, he topples over, trapping Rooster beneath him as Lucky Ned Pepper approaches. Ned’s arm has been shot, but he’s otherwise in good shape, and he menacingly advances upon the fallen marshal.
Unlike LaBoeuf—who uses a crafty method of sneaking up on Chaney—Rooster attempts to defeat Ned and his gang with nothing but foolhardy bravery and brute force. This is the kind of absurd display of courage that the broader culture of the Wild West celebrates. And though it’s impressive that Rooster manages to take down two of his enemies (and lends credence to his earlier boast about shooting men while holding the reins in his teeth), he ultimately fails. As such, Portis implies that the brazenly violent mentality that people like Rooster covet is often ill-advised and dangerous.
Themes
Violence, Courage, and Intelligence Theme Icon
Just as Ned Pepper is about to kill Rooster, LaBoeuf crouches, aims, and shoots the outlaw, killing him where he sits in his saddle. “Hurrah!” Mattie celebrates, but Chaney grabs a large rock and smashes it over LaBoeuf’s head. Seeing this, Mattie grabs her revolver, points it at Chaney, and sends a bullet into his head. Reeling once again from the gun’s kickback, she careens backwards into the snake pit, falling all the way down and getting lodged in a “small hole” at the bottom like a “cork in a bottle.” Because her arm is broken, she’s unable to scramble out of this hole, which she soon discovers is the opening of a bat cave, as bats begin to fly about her legs.
Finally, it seems, Mattie has avenged her father’s death. However, she hardly gets to enjoy this moment, as she soon finds herself injured and stuck in a very precarious situation. In this way, Portis intimates that Mattie’s fixation on revenge has certain repercussions, ultimately causing her to ignore her own safety. The author suggests that acts of violence often come with consequences, as shooting Chaney in the head only creates more trouble for Mattie.
Themes
Revenge Theme Icon
Maturity, Independence, and Expectations Theme Icon
Collaboration, Companionship, and Loyalty Theme Icon
Violence, Courage, and Intelligence Theme Icon
Quotes
Mattie calls out for LaBoeuf but receives no answer. Moment by moment, she slips a little further into the bat hole, realizing that she needs to find something to “wedge” between herself and the walls of the cave. Looking around, she sees a blue shirt, so she reaches for it, thinking she might be able to ball it up and use it to plug herself more sturdily in the hole. When she pulls at it, though, she realizes it’s attached to a skeleton. Nevertheless, she grabs the bones and tries to twist off the hand. As she does so, she notices a swarm of rattlesnakes in the corpse’s chest cavity, realizing that she has “disturbed their sleep in their curious winter quarters.” Still, she manages to break off the skeleton’s arm, which she uses to fend off snakes before propping it against her side as a “wedge” in the hole.
As Mattie’s predicament becomes worse and worse, readers might begin to sense that none of this would have happened if she had simply held Chaney at gunpoint. After all, the only reason she’s in this snake pit is because she shot Chaney. Eager to eliminate him, she failed to think of her own safety despite the fact that she already knew from shooting him the first time that the force of the blast would send her reeling. It again becomes clear that Mattie’s obsession with revenge leads her into trouble.
Themes
Revenge Theme Icon
Violence, Courage, and Intelligence Theme Icon
“Help!” Mattie yells. “There are snakes and skeletons down here!” “I warrant there will be another one before spring!” comes Chaney’s voice, and Mattie realizes he isn’t dead yet. She then hears Rooster as he smashes Chaney’s head in with the butt of his rifle and kicks him into the pit. Chaney’s body careens downward and lands on the skeleton, enraging the rattlesnakes, which slither out and swarm around Mattie. Although she tries to avoid it, a baby snake bites her in the hand. Before long, Rooster belays down and LaBoeuf hoists them both up by tying the rope to Blackie. By the time she’s out of the pit, Mattie is weak and loopy, and Rooster scoops her up and tells LaBoeuf that he’ll send help once he takes Mattie to a doctor. With this, he sets off on Blackie with Mattie in his lap.
Once again, the value of companionship and loyalty comes to the forefront of the novel. Although Rooster and Mattie originally teamed up as part of a business transaction, their journey has brought them together, creating a sense of loyalty so strong that Rooster is willing to risk his own life to save Mattie. In this way, Portis once more illustrates the fact that simply going through the motions of collaboration can often lead to genuine companionship.
Themes
Collaboration, Companionship, and Loyalty Theme Icon
Rooster pushes Blackie hard throughout the journey. Eventually, the poor horse slows down, but Rooster continues to whip it despite Mattie’s protests, even cutting into Blackie’s back to drive him forward. Before long, though, Blackie collapses and dies, so Rooster takes Mattie in his arms and runs. At one point, they come upon a group of men with a wagon, which Rooster steals. When they finally reach Fort Smith, Rooster carries Mattie into the doctor’s house, where she remains for over a week. When her hand balloons up and turns black, the doctor amputates it “just above the elbow” while Mattie’s mother sits by her side. “I very much admired my mother for sitting there and not flinching, as she was of a delicate temperament,” Mattie notes.
That Mattie loses her arm suggests that there are certain consequences that come along with violent acts of revenge. Still, she seemingly has no regrets, remaining courageous and tough in spite of everything. When her arm gets amputated, she doesn’t think of herself, concentrating not on the pain, but on her mother. By behaving so stoically during her amputation, then, she exhibits the same kind of “grit” she so admires in people like Rooster, clearly wanting to embody the brutal resilience that her society celebrates.
Themes
Revenge Theme Icon
Maturity, Independence, and Expectations Theme Icon
Violence, Courage, and Intelligence Theme Icon
Rooster visits Mattie twice while she recovers, telling her that a group of marshals came to rescue LaBoeuf but that he wouldn’t leave until he had retrieved Chaney’s body from the snake pit, into which he himself descended because nobody else was willing to do so. After stopping at McAlester’s and having a doctor attend to his head wound, LaBoeuf set off for Texas with Chaney’s corpse.
LaBoeuf won’t rest until his job is over. Whereas Mattie’s only goal was to avenge her father’s death by killing Chaney, LaBoeuf’s goal is to transport him back to Texas, which is why he refuses to leave the scene of the murder until he has retrieved Chaney’s body.
Themes
Revenge Theme Icon
Mattie writes a check for Rooster for the remaining $75 of his fee and asks Lawyer Daggett to send it to him. When she asks him to do this, Daggett tells her he chastised Rooster for bringing her on the manhunt, but Mattie tells him Rooster should only be “commended for his grit” and that he saved her life, so Daggett personally delivers the check and issues an apology to Rooster. As for Mattie, she sends Rooster a letter inviting him to visit her sometime, and though he says he’ll stop by the next time he brings criminals through the area, he never does. “I will say here that Judy was never recovered, nor was the second California gold piece,” Mattie writes. “I kept the other one for years, until our house burned. We found no trace of it in the ashes.”
Though it’s true Rooster saved Mattie’s life, it’s also true that he probably should have tried harder to keep her from coming on the journey in the first place. Regardless of Mattie’s gender and resolve, there’s no denying how crazy it was to let a child come on a manhunt, which is certainly why Daggett criticizes Rooster. On another note, the fact that Mattie never “recover[s]” the second piece of her father’s gold is an indication that revenge simply can’t bring back what a person has lost, even if it makes that person feel better about the aftermath of that loss.
Themes
Revenge Theme Icon
Maturity, Independence, and Expectations Theme Icon
Collaboration, Companionship, and Loyalty Theme Icon
Violence, Courage, and Intelligence Theme Icon
Quotes
Three weeks later, Rooster kills Odus Wharton in a “duel,” stirring up yet another controversy because he also shoots two other men who are with Odus. Because these men aren’t “wanted by the law,” Rooster is forced to resign as a marshal, at which point he moves with Potter’s widow to San Antonio, Texas to work as a “range detective for a stockmen’s association.” Over the years, Mattie receives bits of information about Rooster, eventually learning 25 years later that he has joined a traveling circus. Her little brother sends her a newspaper advertisement of the show, which is a “Wild West” spectacle including Cole Younger and Frank James. “HE RODE WITH QUANTRILL! HE RODE FOR PARKER!” the clipping boasts, claiming that Rooster can “amaze” audiences with his marksmanship. Upon seeing this, the adult Mattie travels to Memphis to attend the show.
Whereas Mattie’s life of adventure ends when Chaney dies, Rooster continues to lead a violent existence. After all, he’s already back to his reckless ways only three weeks after the incident with Chaney and Ned Pepper, suggesting that this is the only way he knows how to live. It makes sense, then, that he would join a circus with Cole Younger and Frank James as an old man. Unable to continue his ways into old age, he has no choice but to rehash his raucous years. Luckily for him, his society celebrates the kind of violent existence he led, so he’s able to monetize his reputation as part of a circus act.
Themes
Violence, Courage, and Intelligence Theme Icon
On the train to Memphis, Mattie wonders if Rooster will recognize her. When she arrives, she sees the “show train” sitting at the train depot, so she walks over to greet Rooster, finding Cole Younger and Frank James themselves sitting on the edge of a car. When Mattie approaches, Younger stands up and politely introduces herself while James remains seated with his hat on. Younger informs Mattie that Rooster died two nights earlier of natural causes. “We had some lively times,” he says, and Mattie thanks him for the information. As she leaves, she turns to James and says, “Keep your seat, trash!” She notes that it’s now widely known that James shot a man whose murder was pinned on Cole Younger. “As far as I know that scoundrel never spent a night in jail, and there was Cole Younger locked away twenty-five years in the Minnesota pen,” Mattie notes.
Cole Younger and Frank James are nonfictional outlaws who—like Rooster—were in William Quantrill’s dangerous group of guerilla soldiers during and after the final years of the Civil War. Despite her own comfort with violence and revenge, Mattie is a very principled person, which is why she respects Younger for treating her politely but scorns Frank James for being a dishonest man who never went to jail. Cole Younger isn’t a morally good man, but Mattie appreciates the fact that he has served his time. According to her, then, a person can make up for their wrongs by paying for them through personal sacrifice. This aligns with her commitment to revenge, which is a way of forcing a person to atone for past mistakes. In this moment, it becomes clear that Mattie never cast a negative judgment on Rooster because she most likely believed that he had made up for his previous moral shortcomings.
Themes
Revenge Theme Icon
Violence, Courage, and Intelligence Theme Icon
Quotes
Mattie—who now owns a bank—makes sure Rooster’s body is moved to Yell County, where she buries him in her family plot with a headstone that shows his name and the epitaph “A RESOLUTE OFFICER OF PARKER’S COURT.” Although this makes her fellow townspeople gossip about how she’s a lonely, “cranky old maid,” she pays no heed, noting that such people “think everybody is dying to get married.” She, however, has no desire to do this, instead devoting herself to other matters, saying, “I love my church and my bank. What is wrong with that?” Concluding her story, she writes, “This ends my true account of how I avenged Frank Ross’s blood over in the Choctaw Nation when snow was on the ground.”
Mattie ends her story with an assertion of her own independence. At the age of 39, she still pays no attention to what society expects of her, deciding that she doesn’t need to get married in order to lead a fulfilling life. And though it’s been quite some time since her journey into Indian Territory with Rooster and LaBoeuf, the fact that she is still telling the story 25 years later suggests that her preoccupation with revenge continues to consume her.
Themes
Revenge Theme Icon
Maturity, Independence, and Expectations Theme Icon
Quotes