The Journey“You have to pay for everything in this world” (Portis 40). In the True Grit screenplay, based on the novel by Charles Portis, Mattie Ross's character embarks on a hero's journey to avenge her father's death when she learns that her father was murdered in Fort Smith. Her decision to pursue the killer takes her on a journey to Indian Territory. During his hero's travels he will have to go through three phases, separation, initiation and return. Mattie will also have to complete the steps found within the stages. At the beginning of the film, Mattie Ross begins her journey of separation when she leaves home to retrieve her father's body after he was killed. The first stage of the journey is the call. This phase “invites the initiate to adventure, offers the opportunity to face the unknown and gain something of physical or spiritual value… the initiate has had something taken from him or his family. Her quest is to win him back” (Harris and Thompson 50). For Mattie, this means that her father's body is the thing that needs to be recovered. She is called to adventure when she was "only fourteen when a coward named Tom Chaney killed [her] father and robbed him of his life, his horse, and two California gold pieces he was carrying" (Coens '1) . In other words, Mattie got her call. The second stage of the journey is the threshold, or “'the 'starting point' for the adventure…. Once the threshold is crossed…the initiate enters the unknown, a different world of danger and challenge” (Harris and Thompson 50). For Mattie, the threshold comes when she crosses the river into Indian Territory. Before leaving he says in a letter to his mother: "I am about to embark on a great adventure... middle of paper... precisely part of the society in which she lives, precisely because she is not married nor has children and clearly shows that she does not she cares nothing. With this Mattie has completed all the phases and steps of the hero's journey. Mattie may not seem like a hero to the people in her community, but she is a hero in herself for going out to avenge her father's blood and she is a hero because she has experienced all the phases and steps of the hero's journey. “Even though the characters are not real, the journeys they take and the challenges they face are reflections of the real journeys and challenges we all face in life” (Harris and Thompson 52). Although she is not real and perhaps in today's world challenges are not what we should face, she still shows us that we all have challenges that we face in life. “There are no shortcuts on the road of life. Not even one.”