True Grit: Chapter 7 Summary & Analysis

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.