True Grit by Charles Portis

Published 1968 · 224 pages · 58,315 words · about 4 hours at an average pace · Western, literary fiction, adventure, coming-of-age

How hard is True Grit to read?

True Grit scores 46 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 75 out of 100
Charles Portis employs a distinctive, formal, and often archaic vocabulary, reflecting the narrator Mattie Ross's precise and period-specific voice. The text is rich with legalistic terms like 'writ of replevin' and 'particeps criminis,' alongside regionalisms such as 'hooraw' and 'corn dodgers,' demanding careful attention from the reader. This blend of elevated diction and specialized slang positions its complexity above 'Moby-Dick' due to its pervasive stylistic choice.
Sentence structure: 68 out of 100
Mattie Ross's narration features extended sentences with multiple clauses and parenthetical asides, creating a formal, almost oratorical rhythm. While not as extreme as Henry James's hypotaxis or Faulkner's lengthy sentences, the consistent use of complex sentence structures and formal conjunctions requires sustained reader engagement. The sentences are grammatically sound but demand careful parsing, placing it above 'The Great Gatsby' in terms of demands on the reader.
Abstraction: 70 out of 100
While primarily a concrete adventure narrative, 'True Grit' is frequently elevated by Mattie Ross's philosophical reflections and moral judgments. She intersperses the story with musings on justice, human nature, and theological concepts like Election, grounding these abstract ideas in her personal experiences. This blend of vivid action and thoughtful commentary places it comparably to '2666,' which is 'grounded but probing meaning,' rather than purely concrete adventure.
Information density: 68 out of 100
The narrative is dense with specific details, including names, dates, legal specifics, and historical context, such as the intricacies of Judge Parker's court and the Civil War. Mattie's detailed observations and opinions, combined with intricate dialogue and exposition, require consistent reader focus to follow the plot and character motivations. This rich texture of information, while flowing, demands more attention than a 'plot-driven' novel like 'The Housemaid'.
Narrative indirection: 35 out of 100
Mattie Ross narrates the story with remarkable directness, explicitly stating events, her motivations, and her judgments without requiring significant reader inference. Her older self's reflections sometimes add context but rarely contradict the factual account, making the narrative largely told rather than implied. This contrasts sharply with books like *Lolita* or *The Great Gatsby*, where unreliable narrators necessitate reading against the text.
Symbolic density: 22 out of 100
"True Grit" operates largely on a literal level, focusing on Mattie's direct quest for justice rather than employing extensive symbolism or allegory. While themes of courage and determination are present, they are conveyed through character actions and explicit commentary, not through pervasive motifs or objects carrying meaning beyond their literal function. This places it significantly lower than works like *The Great Gatsby* or *Moby-Dick*.
Ironic distance: 60 out of 100
The novel employs a subtle but pervasive ironic distance, primarily through the voice of its earnest and highly formal narrator, Mattie Ross. The humor often arises from the gap between Mattie's unwavering self-seriousness and the reader's appreciation of her precocious, sometimes naive, yet determined perspective. This creates a gentle authorial wink, distinct from the direct emotional engagement of lower-scoring anchors but less overtly satirical or unreliable than higher-scoring ones like *Lolita*.
Resolution withholding: 30 out of 100
The novel provides a clear and definitive resolution to its central quest: Tom Chaney is killed, and Mattie's revenge is exacted. The older Mattie's narration explicitly details the subsequent fates of the main characters, including Rooster Cogburn's later life and death, leaving few significant ambiguities or open questions regarding the plot. This contrasts with works that deliberately resist closure, such as *The Crying of Lot 49*.
Structural complexity: 30 out of 100
"True Grit" exhibits a largely linear and chronological structure, narrated entirely from the first-person perspective of an older Mattie Ross recounting her youthful adventures. While Mattie occasionally interjects with retrospective commentary or updates on characters' later lives, these are clearly delineated and do not create significant timeline jumps or formal complexity. The inclusion of a court transcript is a minor stylistic variation but does not disrupt the overall straightforward narrative flow, placing it far below works with fragmented chronologies or multiple viewpoints.

How True Grit is regarded

True Grit holds a literary regard score of 65 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

Where True Grit sits in Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism

Placed by a full reading of the text (101 passages), not from reputation. Each verdict quotes the passage that earned it. On the axis from myth to irony, True Grit scores 55 out of 100. A second mythos, irony, pulls at it with a weight of 0.25. About the map of stories.

Mode: Low Mimetic (with romance residue)
He might have been a gallant knight of old.
Symbol: Formal
Here is what happened. We had clear title to 480 acres of good bottom land on the south bank of the Arkansas River not far from Dardanelle in Yell County, Arkansas.
Mythos: Romance iii (romance iii)
Fill your hand, you son of a bitch!
Genre: Romance + Confession + Novel
I have a newspaper record of a part of that Wharton trial and it is not an official transcript but it is faithful enough.

Where the story of True Grit takes place

  • Fort Smith, Arkansas, and Indian Territory, 1878, the main setting
  • Fort Smith, Arkansas and the Indian Territory, winter 1877-78 (1877 to 1878)
  • Memphis, Tennessee, May-June 1903

4 things that are true of True Grit, with the passage for each

  1. Rooster Cogburn testifies under oath that he has killed twenty-three men in four years as a deputy marshal.

    I believe them two Whartons made twenty-three.

  2. Lucky Ned Pepper makes Mattie sign banknotes with a turkey-feather quill dipped in gunpowder ink.

    He dipped the quill into the “ink” and printed NED on his wrist in childish characters.

  3. Mattie's left arm is amputated above the elbow by Dr. Medill on the third day after the pit.

    Dr. Medill gave me a sizable dose of morphine and amputated the arm just above the elbow with a little surgical saw.

  4. Mattie buys Rooster a marble headstone inscribed with his dates and a one-line epitaph.

    REUBEN COGBURN 1835-1903 A RESOLUTE OFFICER OF PARKER’S COURT

Scenes in True Grit that Frye would name

29 sightings of Frye's terms in the text. The strongest:

Agon, untitled
he took the reins in his teeth and pulled the other saddle revolver and drove his spurs into the flanks of his strong horse Bo and charged directly at the bandits. Rooster's charge on four outlaws is the book's central heroic contest.
Anagnorisis, untitled
The man was none other than Tom Chaney! Mattie's chance recognition of her quarry at the creek pivots the plot.
Katabasis, untitled
I had forgotten about the pit behind me! The recoil sends Mattie down into the cavern, the book's literal descent to the underworld.
Pathos, untitled
Blackie fell to the ground and died, his brave heart burst and mine broken. The sacrifice of the innocent pony at the very end of the quest is its emotional low point.
Pathos, untitled
Tom Chaney raised his rifle and shot him in the forehead, killing him instantly. The sacrificial death of the gentle father opens the book and sets the quest in motion.
Katabasis, untitled
The something was the corpse of a man! Or more properly, a skeleton. The pit holds the dead and a nest of snakes, a classic lower-world scene.

Books that share these scenes with True Grit

About the author

Charles Portis