True Grit 7

7.  “In 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.” 220

Most of the book is set post Civil war in the late 1800’s when the Confederacy was drastically changing. The book then ends at the beginning of the 1900’s, when culture has already changed drastically. Portis’s True Grit is as much historical fiction as it is adventure because it shows these culture changes that occurred in the West. There would never have been a “Wild West” show in the 1800’s when there was a real frontier, but people of the 1900’s were nostalgic for the old frontier of the West. This is why these shows began popping up everywhere. Clearly Rooster also has to change with society, because he starts off as a real trooper and turns into a fake one.