Winter's Bone

Dean DeGroot

ENG. 102       

Laura Cline

March 4, 2012

Winter’s Bone

When I stopped reading last night (Pg. 130) Ree was getting beat up by three other women. I’m not even sure where she was. I need to do some rereading, if for no other reason than, to have a better grasp of the characters.

Ree is a very conflicted girl/women who had to grow up fast. Ree 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.
The novel, Winter's Bone, by Daniel Woodrell is starting out to be very entertaining. I'm anxious to see how this all plays out for Ree and her family.

Works Cited:

Woodrell, Daniel. Winter's Bone. 1st ed. New York: Back Bay Books, 2006. Print. 
https://encrypted-tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRMyqi8-OsYdaoWciyB1efGr- CecXdVEGWS9PIu0ojHoGxrwa_T