Exam 2 Review Crime & Punishment

"People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band.”

• True Grit

• Charles Portis

• These are the opening lines of True Grit, and they establish the main conflict in the story. Mattie is established as a brave, young protagonist.

“Tom Chaney was a tenant but working for hire and not on shares. He turned up one day hungry and riding a gray horse that had a filthy blanket on his back and a rope halter instead of a bridle. Papa took pity on the fellow and gave him a job and a place to live.”

• True Grit

• Charles Portis

• This establishes the characters of Tom Chaney and Frank Ross and the good nature of Frank Ross in contrast to Chaney, who takes advantage of him.

“If Papa had a failing it was his kindly disposition. People would use him. I did not get my mean streak from him. Frank Ross was the gentlest, most honorable man who ever lived.”

• True Grit

• Charles Portis

• Establishes Frank Ross as a good, honorable, kind character

“Papa left us on his saddle horse, a big chestnut mare with a blazed face called Judy … He was a handsome sight and in my memory’s eye I can still see him mounted up there on Judy in his brown woolen coat and black Sunday hat and the both of them, man and beast, blowing little clouds of steam on that frosty morn.”

• True Grit

• Charles Portis

• Imagery of Frank Ross in the last moments that Mattie sees him before his death, where he looks strong and heroic to Mattie.

“Little did Papa realize that morning that he was never to see us or hold us again, nor would he ever again harken to the meadowlarks of Yell County trilling a joyous anthem to spring.”

• True Grit

• Charles Portis

• Sets up the fact that Frank Ross dies on this journey with Chaney

“That night Tom Chaney went to a barroom and got into a game of cards with some ‘riffraff’ like himself and lost his wages … My father was not armed at the time. Tom Chaney raised his rifle and shot him in the forehead, killing him instantly.”

• True Grit

• Establishes Tom Chaney as an antagonist

“Some people might say, well, what business was it of Frank Ross to meddle? My answer is this: he was trying to do that short devil a good turn. Chaney was a tenant and Papa felt responsibility. He was his brother’s keeper. Does that answer your question?”

He had mistaken the drummers for men. “The wicked flee when none pursueth.’”

“Well, I killed the wrong man and that is why I am here. If I had killed the man I meant to I don’t believe I would have been convicted. I see man out there in that crowd that is worse than me.”

“I am ready. I have repented my sins and soon I will be in heaven with Christ my savior. Now I must die like a man.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, my last thoughts are of my wife and my two dear little boys who are far away out on the Cimarron River. I don’t know what is to become of them. I hope and pray that people will not slight them and compel them to go into low company on account of the disgrace I have brought them. You see what I have come to because of drink. I killed my best friend in a trifling quarrel over a pocketknife. I was drunk and it could just as easily have been my brother. If I had received good instruction as a child I would be with my family today and at peace with my neighbors. I hope and pray that all you parents in the sound of my voice will train up your children in the way they should go. Thank you. Goodbye everyone.”

“The Irishman said, ‘If ye would loike to kiss him it would be all roight.’

I said, ‘No, put a lid on it.’”

“Some people will take it wrong and criticize me for not going to my father’s funeral. My answer is this: I had my father’s business to attend to.”

“I want him to know he is being punished for killing my father. It is nothing to me how many dogs and fat men he killed in Texas.”

“I said to Rooster, ‘Are you going to let him do this?’

He dropped his cigarette to the ground and said, ‘No, I don’t believe I will. Put your switch away, LaBeouf. She has got the best of us.’

‘She has not got the best of me,” replied the Ranger.

Rooster said, ‘That will do, I said.’

“‘I am played out,’ said he. ‘I must have a doctor. I will tell what I know.’

With that, Quincy brought the bowie knife down on Moon’s cuffed hand and chopped off four fingers which flew up before my eyes like chips from a log. Moon screamed and a rifle ball shattered the lantern in front of me and struck Quincy in the neck, causing hot blood to spurt on my face. My thought was: I am better out of this.”

“He drank deep and it caused him pain. He talked a little more but in a rambling manner and to no sensible purpose. He did not respond to questions. Here is what was in his eyes: confusion. Soon it was all up with him and he joined his friend in death. He looked about thirty pounds lighter.”

“If you had not followed the entire ‘stunt’ from start to finish as I had done, you would have thought the horse was riderless. That is how he escaped Rooster’s attention. I was ‘mesmerized’ and proved to be of no help.”

“That was his cur nature, to change from a whining baby to a vicious bully as circumstances permitted.”

“It was LaBoeuf the Texan! He had come up the back way, on foot I supposed, as he was panting for breath. He was standing not thirty feet away with his wired-together rifle trained on Chaney.

Chaney let go of my coat and dropped the pistol. ‘Everything is against me,’ he said. I recovered the pistol.

LaBoeuf said, ‘Are you hurt, Mattie?’”

“It was some daring move on the part of the deputy marshal whose manliness and grit I had doubted. No grit? Rooster Cogburn? Not much!”

“The distance covered by LaBoeuf’s wonderful shot at the moving rider was over six hundred yards. I am prepared to swear an affidavit to it.

‘Hurrah!’ I joyfully exclaimed. ‘Hurrah for the man from Texas! Some bully shot!’ LaBoeuf was pleased with himself and he reloaded his rifle.”

“Now the prisoner has an advantage over his keeper in this respect, that he is always thinking of escape and watching for opportunities, while the keeper does not constantly think of keeping him. Once his man is subdued, so the guard believes, little else is needed but the presence and threat of superior force. He thinks of happy things and allows his mind to wander. It is only natural. Were it otherwise, the keeper would be a prisoner of the prisoner.”

“I hurriedly cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger. The charge exploded and sent a lead ball of justice, too long delayed, into the criminal head of Tom Chaney.”

“In the late May of 1903 Little Frank sent me a cutting from The Commercial Appeal in Memphis. It was an advertisement for the Cole Younger and Frank James “Wild West” show that was coming to play in the Memphis Chicks’ baseball park. Down in the smaller type at the bottom of the notice Little Frank had circled the following:

HE RODE WITH QUANTRILL! HE RODE FOR PARKER! … ‘Rooster’ Cogburn will amaze you with his skill and dash with the six-shooter and repeating rifle!”

“These old-timers had all fought together in the border strife under Quantrill’s black standard, and afterward led dangerous lives, and now this was all they were fit for, to show themselves to the public like strange wild beasts of the jungle.”

“Younger told me that Rooster had passed away a few days before while the show was at Jonesboro, Arkansas. … Younger spoke fondly of him. ‘We had some lively times,’ was one thing he said. I thanked the courteous old outlaw for his help and said to James, ‘Keep your seat, trash!’ and took my leave.”

“I heard nothing more of the Texas officer, LaBeouf. If he is yet alive and should happen to read these pages, I will be pleased to hear from him. I judge he is in his seventies now, and nearer eighty than seventy. I expect some of the starch has gone out of that ‘cowlick.’ Time just gets away from us.”