I'll remember this book for its lively and distinctive narrator voice, and the way it (unintentionally?) captures so much of the American psyche.
Mattie Ross is headstrong, principled, and speaks in folksy idioms. She narrates her story as if called to the witness stand. She regularly caveats information she knows only secondhand or scenes she cannot recall with great certainty. Those moments she recalls with great precision she states her willingness to swear on. Her narrative voice reflects her worldview: except for her close ties with her family, her relationships with people are largely transactional and her assessment of morality emphasizes its consistence with the law.
Lawful society versus the state of nature is a major theme of the work. Mattie's worldview comes into conflict with her life experience when she underestimates a bandit's willingness to defy her arrest and overpower her physically, thrusting her into a state of nature. In an effort to escape her captors she finds herself in a pit filled with snakes and bats. Forced by necessity, she rips the arm off a corpse (an act she views as unlawful desecration) and fights her way out.
The story itself is quintessentially American, both in the positive and negative sense. Mattie's quest symbolizes the importance of fighting for justice, although it is a retributive justice. Mattie values grit, and because of grit even a trigger-happy and vindictive bad cop may be the key to achieving justice. It's important to live by your principles, and everyone is unscrupulous and out to get you. Perhaps there is a work out there that venerates these positive qualities without also promoting these negative qualities; America is unlikely to fix its problems while instilling True Grit morality.
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