Character Analysis
(Avoiding Spoilers)
Overview… a dedicated Texas Ranger. LaBoeuf has spent the last few months hunting down Tom Chaney, who is wanted on charges of assassinating a Texas state senator. He’s tracked Chaney to Arkansas, where he overhears young Mattie Ross talking about financing an expedition to capture Chaney. LaBoeuf offers to join forces in the hopes of catching the criminal and taking him back to Texas to stand trial.
Personality… capable and determined, but perhaps overly proud. A rough-and-tumble cowboy, LaBoeuf doesn’t take well to having a young girl accompanying him on his manhunt. Yet he makes his best efforts to be polite while in town, which annoys the brusque federal marshal Rooster Cogburn, Mattie’s other companion. Relentless and steadfast, LaBoeuf has been tracking Chaney for a long time and is confident in his ability to apprehend the infamous killer.
Get to Know him in...
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Following the murder of her father by hired hand Tom Chaney, 14-year-old farm girl Mattie Ross sets out to capture the killer. To aid her, she hires the toughest U.S. Marshal she can find, a man with "true grit," Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn. Mattie insists on accompanying Cogburn, whose drinking, sloth, and generally reprobate character do not augment her faith in him. Against his wishes, she joins him in his trek into the Indian Nations in search of Chaney. They are joined by Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, who wants Chaney for his own purposes. The unlikely trio find danger and adventure on the journey, and each has his or her "grit" tested.
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True Grit is his most famous novel--first published in 1968, and the basis for the movie of the same name starring John Wayne. It tells the story of Mattie Ross, who is just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shoots her father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robs him of his life, his horse, and $150 in cash money. Mattie leaves home to avenge her father's blood. With the one-eyed Rooster Cogburn, the meanest available U.S. Marshal, by her side, Mattie pursues the homicide into Indian Territory. True Grit is eccentric, cool, straight, and unflinching, like Mattie herself. From a writer of true cult status, this is an American classic through and through. This new edition, with a smart new package and an afterword by acclaimed author Donna Tartt, will bring this masterpiece to an even broader audience.
