PJAS 13 Spring-3
Jerry D. Leonard
Horse and Class in True Grit
Polish Journal for American Studies, vol. 13 (Spring 2019), pp. 27-38
Abstract: This essay returns to Jane Tompkins’ original theory of horses in her 1992 book West of Everything: The Inner Life of Westerns as a means of analyzing Charles Portis’ 1968 novel True Grit, a work which Tompkins does not address. Arguing for a Marxist ideology critique of True Grit with a focus on the main character (and narrator) Mattie Ross and her horse named Little Blackie, the essay offers a critique of Tompkins’ idea of the “material presence” of horses in American Western narratives.
Keywords: True Grit, Jane Tompkins, Little Blackie, materialism, ideology
DOI: 10.7311/PJAS.13/1/2019.03