Dean DeGroot
Eng. 102
Laura Cline
3-March, 2012
Essay #3
Winter’s
Bone
Winter’s
Bone, a novel by Daniel Woodrell, is a story of the entrapment's of life.
These prisons that encage us can come in many forms and affect us on a lot of
levels. Even though the story itself is fictional, the content is real.
Woodrell was born in the
Ozarks but his father had to relocate because of employment opportunities so he
became of age in an urban setting. He did not like, he actually said “hate” in a
short bio written by John Williams in The
Independent, a UK publication,
living in Kansas City, and so at the age of seventeen he joined the marines to
escape. Woodrell was sent to Vietnam where he fit in with his fellow marines
but because of a problem with authority and his trouble following “pointless
orders” (Williams) trouble followed and he was discharged early. After
returning to the states he followed his passion wrote some short stories, one
of which won a competition and some recognition. Winning really lit his fire
and he applied, and was accepted, to a highly reputable literary college.
Woodrell bonded with his fellow students but once again he had issues with
authority, the professors. He stated,” But I didn't think most of the teachers
amounted to much.” (Williams)
He did manage to graduate and started to write
full time with limited success. After some time as a starving artist, which
I’ve heard breeds creativity, a few years of self-doubt and geographical
changes Woodrell found himself back in the Ozarks where he was able to move
beyond his writers block, pick up the pen and, author a series of crime dramas;
Under the Bright Lights, Muscle for the Wing and The Ones You Do. His book, Woe
to Live On was picked up by Ang Lee and turned into a film entitled Ride with the Devil. Woodrell admitted
that, because of the revenue generated by Hollywood, it “kept the wolf from the
door” which allowed him to move forward with his own writing style confidently.
This creative freedom eventually led to the novel, and movie, Winter’s Bone.
The novel is a very descriptive
account of Ree Dolly’s life within a small impoverished community in the Ozarks.
Woodrell wasted no time in establishing the fact that Ree was a hardy girl that
was accustomed to the harsh environment in which she lived and knew how to
overcome and adapt to less than perfect conditions. Gazing across the creek,
one winter morning, at the more fortunate neighbors, who had meat hanging from
their trees, she was mentally assessing her situation and contemplating a long
cold winter because of meager supplies, a lean cupboard, an absent father, and
a mother who couldn’t cope. Woodrell did a great job immediately in making the
reader feel the cold and see the grey physical world that Ree was living in. Letting
us into her head, where she gave the mental description of her parents lets the
reader know that Ree’s harsh environment was a lot larger than just Mother
Nature and the lack of money. Her father, Jessup Dolly, was a nervous man, full
of empty promises, and her mother whose, “mind broke and the parts scattered
and she let them go” (Woodrell, 6) is evidence that Ree is not your typical 16
year old with typical 16 year old problems and dreams. Ree’s solitude is
interrupted by her 8 year old sibling Harold who suggests that they ask the
neighbors, who are kin, for some meat where Ree replies, out of a sense of
pride, “Never. Never ask for what
should be offered.” (Woodrell, 5)
The author does a very good job establishing
Ree’s physical and spiritual environment and moves into the culture in which
she was born into and lets the reader know that Ree’s desire is to remove
herself from that culture and its twisted set of rules.
Ree is a very conflicted girl/women who had to grow up fast.
She has a strong sense of loyalty to “blood” while adhering to an unwritten
“honor amongst thieves” type of code. She sees who she is, and what she will
become, if she stays in the life she was born into.
The way Ree dresses is even
conflicting. She wears combat boots out of necessity, and a dress out of her
desire to be a woman. Listening to soothing mood tapes is one way she escapes
her reality. Even when Ree was in a good place she felt the need to escape such
as, “Pine trees with low limbs spread over fresh snow made a stronger vault for
the spirit than pews and pulpits ever could. She sat on a big thinking rock
amid the pines and clamped her headphones on. She selected…Alpine Dusk. But those wintry mountain sounds matched the view too
perfectly and she switched to The Sounds
of Tropical Dawn.”(Woodrell, Pg. 38)
Ree’s mother is there physically,
but because of a mental escape, she has become someone Ree needs to take care
of, in addition to her two younger brothers. Ree’s father, Jessup, out of a
twisted sense of providing for the family, is seldom home. He is caught up in
the world Ree fears her younger siblings will fall into, that vicious circle of
addiction and criminal activity.
Because of Jessup’s criminal
activity, and problems with the law, the family home is in jeopardy. Ironically
Ree is currently fighting hard to save the life she so desperately wants to
escape.
Ree was aware of her father’s
criminal activity, but the news that he had put the family home up as collateral
for his bond hit her like a winter storm. The local sheriff had just informed
her that Jessup could not be located, and if he didn’t show for his hearing
they would lose the home and all the land. “Ree nearly fell but would not let
it happen in front of the law (Pride). She told the sheriff that she would find
him but in her mind “she heard thunder clapping between her ears and Beelzebub
scratchin’ a fiddle. The boys and her and mom would be dogs in the fields
without this house…She’d never get away from her family as planned, off to the
U.S. Army…She’d never have only her own concerns to tote. She’d never have her
own concerns.” (Woodrell, 15) This is the first indicator, to Ree, that she
might be trapped, but she also feels that if she can find her father and save
the home there still might be a chance she could escape and have her own life.
With a determination driven by fear Ree ventures out into the cold Ozark winter
only to learn some cold hard truths about the culture she belongs to.
Woodrell lives and works in the
Ozarks with his wife, novelist Katie Estill and avoids the publicity circuit.
He lives in the middle of nowhere, a five hour drive from the St. Louis
airport, in a neighborhood that leans more towards the
poor white crystal-meth consumer than leading American novelist. A short drive
down the road takes you to “Collinsville, the inspiration for Winter's Bone.” (Williams)
“These folks are the model for the Dolly clan in Winter's Bone. They're a
lawless bunch - or rather, the laws they answer to are not those of the land. "These
are people so alienated from the mainstream of American culture," says
Woodrell, "that it's like a parallel universe. They don't expect anything
but trouble from the square world. Every time they interact with that world
they're given a ticket, sent to jail, drafted. It's never good. So they live by
a separate value system. A homegrown notion of justice.” (Williams)
It is evident that Ree is aware of this value system because of her
unwillingness to cooperate with the law. Instead she ventures out on her own
trying to find some answers to her father’s whereabouts by leaning on members
of her community, family members, kin, more commonly referred to as the Dolly
clan. Most of the male members of the Dolly clan are crank cookers, much like
their fathers before them who were moonshine cookers. The only way they know how
to survive in this “parallel Universe”, where jobs are not very abundant, is
through criminal activity. Drug use is also very common and accepted as a
normal way of life. Ree is offered marijuana everywhere she goes but she gets
very few answers and is told to just let it (looking for her father) go. Not
willing to “let it go” Ree pushes on, continuing to knock on doors. Because she
doesn’t have a vehicle Ree has to walk everywhere she goes. This gives the
author an opportunity to let the reader inside her head.
Works Cited:
Williams, John.
"Daniel Woodrell:The Ozark daredevil." Independent. (2006): n.
page. Web. 25 Mar. 2012. <http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/daniel-woodrell-the-ozark-daredevil-404146.html
Woodrell, Daniel. Winter's
Bone. 1st ed. New York, NY: Back Bay Books/Little,Brown and Company, 2007.
Print.
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