The environment that surrounds the characters in Winter’s Bone creates a bloody and violent mood that reflects the theme of death throughout the novel. The story begins the image of deer carcasses strung up on trees and falling snow beginning to cover them. The description says, “The carcasses pale of flesh with a fatty gleam from low limbs of saplings in the side yards” (Woodrell 3). The grotesque nature of the scene shows the reader the realities of daily life in the Ozarks, where violence and death are used as a means of survival. The death of the deer is also presented to the reader without a somber tone, which conveys that death is viewed as a necessity for life. Woodrell further supports this theme through the scene of Ree sawing off her dead father’s hands to give to the police. The peak of violence and death within the novel occurs when Ree tugs at Jessup’s dead body and uses a chainsaw to take both of his hands as proof of his death. Ree is able to commit this violent act out of necessity because she will lose her home if her father’s body is not presented to the authorities. Her actions show how numb she is to the sight of death because of her desperate situation.
I thought it was interesting how violence is taught as a
means of survival to young children. Ree teaches her younger brothers how to
shoot guns and clean animals at a young age, even as she herself is still only
sixteen. She forces them to look past the death of squirrels in order to take
the meat for eating. When Harold puts up a fight to cleaning the squirrel, Ree
says, “’You got you a whole bunch of stuff you’re goin’ to have to get over
bein’ scared of, boy’” (Woodrell 107). She uses the scene with shooting and
cleaning squirrels to prepare her brothers for the future where they may have
to take care of themselves. Ree knows from her own experience that one needs to
be comfortable around death in order to live in their community. Ree’s need to
teach them about this bloody activity further shows the importance of violence
and death for survival in the Ozarks.
Hi! I think your blog post was very interesting and I didn't really think about the theme of "death is a necessity" within the novel, so it definitely gave me a different perspective on some of the scenes and characters in the book . I think it is intriguing how the setting of this novel is not what most people are used to - living on the edge of poverty, where murders and deaths are common, drugs are cooked and distributed all over town, and teaching the young to fend for themselves; this is a dangerous place and the fact that Ree, brothers, and the other characters are used to it speaks volumes. I think the scenes of Ree and her brothers killing squirrels and the deer carcasses in the trees were more normal to think about, as it deemed as food in their setting for their survival. But the scene with Ree cutting off her father's hands to prove his death was very shocking. Throughout the novel, Ree never really talked about her dad in a light-hearted and personal way, and felt betrayed by him for leaving like that basically giving up their house. She didn't really show that many emotions when cutting his hands off, but it comes to show that in her world - you have to do what is necessary for the people you love - and that comes back to keeping the house for her brothers, mother, and her.
ReplyDeleteViolence in Winter’s Bone shows the difference in maturity between Sonny and Harold. In the book, Sonny was always ready to get his hands dirty while Harold was not. When they are all out hunting for squirrels, the boys have completely different mindsets. Ree tells Harold to go kill the squirrel and he protests, “He’s callin’ for his momma” (103). While Sonny does not hesitate and walks over to the squirrel, grabs its head, and “jerked it beyond connection with the body” (103). These distinct attitudes toward killing animals show that Harold still thinks like a child because he imagines the squirrel wanting his mother and on the other hand, Sonny simply kills the squirrel with no hesitation.
ReplyDeleteThe different maturity levels are seen once again when it is time to skin and gut the squirrels. Harold refuses to grab the guts out of the squirrel while Sonny does it without questions and then says “‘It ain’t no worse’n cleanin’ up puke” (106). So, to help Harold reach the maturity level that Sonny is at, she forces him to take the guts out anyway with his eyes close. But once he did it, he looked at his hand “calmly” and says “that really ain’t no biggie” (107). Here, something starts to shift within Harold because he is able to do a task that he considers gross.