Daniel Woodrell’s novel, Winter’s Bone, dives into the life of a family who lives in the Ozarks. Even at the beginning of the novel it is obvious that Ree Dolly, the oldest daughter, plays the parental role in her family although only being sixteen years old. Her mother is mentally ill and her father is known in the town as a drug dealer. Having two younger brothers, every problem falls on her to fix. In the beginning of the novel, Ree is faced with the winter storm coming up, an abnormally large storm. As the novel continues, she raises her brother as a maternal figure in some ways, but not a typical mother figure. She raises them to be strong men who can be self-sufficient and do not need to rely on other people when they are older. Ree says the her brothers “never ask for what ought to be offered” (Woodrell, 5). She wants her brothers to have an easy childhood so that they are prepared for the real world once they have to be. Ree finds herself amidst larger problems when the sheriff comes to the house and says their father is missing and must show up to his court date or they will lose their house. Ree’s struggle once again is to take care of her brothers, “Ree’s grand hope was that these boys would not be dead to wonder by age twelve, dulled to life, empty of kindness, boiling with mean. So many Dolly kids were that way, ruined before they had chin hair, groomed to live outside square law and abide by the remorseless blood-soaked commandments that governed lives outside square law…The rough Dollys were scornful of town law and town ways, clinging to their own” (Woodrell, 8). Ree Dolly plays a maternal role throughout Winter’s Bone due to the lack of parenting by her own parents. She is forced to grow up and take care of her siblings due to her circumstances.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with your point and I think that Ree's role in this story as a "parental figure" is very interesting due to the fact that she is so young. Most people her age are unable to really understand what life is and how to handle everyday situations so it is interesting to see how she takes on the responsibility of helping her brothers learn to fend for themselves and be true adults. A scene that I think also relates to your point is when Ree was teaching the boys how to skin squirrels and Harold resists pulling the guts out because he is scared. She then tells him that he "can't always leave the ugly stuff to Sonny," (Woodrell 107). In this moment, Ree could have just let him get away with not helping her and she could have given up. However, she is so determined to make sure that they are self sufficient and able to take care of themselves that she does not allow him to run away from his fears. This makes her unlike the typical teenage girl because of the amount of time, patience, and effort she has when it comes to situations such as this one and many others when it comes to them. Ree's love for her brothers proves why she does everything she does for them throughout the story.
ReplyDeleteI agree with how Woodrell characterizes Ree as maternal. I also think a really interesting point is how she’s exclusively maternal with her brothers. When it comes to other children in the novel, like with Ned, she doesn’t display these motherly qualities. When Gail is doing things with Ned, these seem foreign to Ree and not natural. I think this plays more to the point you bring up about her brothers having an easier childhood because of her. She has enough motherly instinct to be able to parent her own brothers, but very limited. This is due to the fact that whenever she parents her brothers, she still has some sisterly qualities.
ReplyDeleteThe quote you bring up on page eight shows this: she wants to parent them enough to make sure they don’t end up like the rest of her family. This also shows how Ree is breaking the cycle. She was the Dolly kid who made it out, who didn’t end up like the rest of her family, and she's going to pass that down to her brothers. Ree could just give up, to leave her brothers to fend for themselves and then go live her own life, but she doesn’t. Ree cares about them, and will not give up on them.