True Grit et son héroïne, Mattie Ross : une voix pour les femmes ?

Abstract

True Grit was published in the United States in 1968, at the height of the counterculture movement. This western was a bestseller although the founding values of America were being strongly challenged at the time. The author, Charles Portis, freed himself from the traditional codes of the western genre: his heroine, Mattie, is a teenage girl. Displaying many features usually reserved to male characters (strength, bravery, determination), she also embodies moral values. A subversive western, True Grit questions the role and the position of women in the American society. Does this image of a free woman face some limits?

Keywords

• subversion
• western
• feminism
• minor literature