Throughout his novel, “Winter’s Bone,” Daniel Woodrell casts
the main character Ree Dolly as the caretaker and mentor of her two younger
brothers. Woodrell places many parental
traits in Ree so that the reader will automatically think of her as a parent
rather than a sister. Even from the very
beginning of the novel, the actions of Ree are done because she thinks of what
the effects will be on her younger brothers if she fails to act. For example, the novel starts with the local
town officer, Baskin, explaining to Ree that if her father is not found and
brought in to pay for his crimes, then their house and property will be taken
by the law. Upon hearing this
information, Ree thinks of how “[her brothers] and her and Mom would be dogs in
the field without this house,” and how “the boys’d have a hard hard shove
toward unrelenting meanness” (Woodrell 14-15).
Through Ree’s thought, it can be seen that she cares equally, if not
more, about her brothers than herself, which is a common characteristic of many
parents. Her parental qualities toward
her brothers show her tenderness and love toward them.
With her
father on the run and her mother uncapable of moving, Ree is forced to run the
house in every way. By writing her as a single
parent to her younger brothers, Woodrell shows how much Ree really cares about
her family, especially her brothers. It
might be argued that Ree does not care about her brothers because of how she
talks to them and gets annoyed. One such
example is when they are getting ready for school, and one of the boys
complains about his socks, and she says, “’would you please, please, please put
those fuckin’ socks on! Would you do that?
Huh” (Woodrell 7)? Although she may
be sometimes annoyed with the actions of her brother, at the end of the day Ree
is just their older sister, and siblings often become agitated with each
other. Being annoyed with each other
does not necessarily mean that there is no love. Ree’s other helping actions show how much she
truly does care about her brothers.
I agree that Ree has unconditional love for her brothers, and that this love is her primary motivation for her actions. Ree forms her entire day to day life around taking care of both her brothers and her mother. As opposed to focusing on getting an education, or getting married as multiple people suggest to Ree throughout the novel, she focuses on helping her family. For instance, Ree mentions a desire to join the army (primarily due to the financial aid and stability that it would provide). However, she does not actually do so because this would mean leaving her brothers. At one point in the novel, one of Ree’s brothers asks her point blank if she is going to join the army to get away from them, and she responds that she would never leave them. While Ree could find a way to survive on her own in case of an eviction due to her father’s absence, she knows that her brothers and mother could not, and this begins her journey to try to find her father. She puts herself in danger, over and over again, due to her love and dedication to her family. Many people try to discourage Ree and get her to give up, but because she cares about the wellbeing of her family over her own personal safety, she refuses. This perseverance and love ends up benefiting Ree and her family in the end because she did not give up on finding out what happened to her father, ultimately proving his death and protecting the livelihood of herself, her siblings, and their mother.
ReplyDeleteWoodrell does an excellent job making Ree’s motherly instincts stand out throughout the novel by portraying the relationship between her and her brothers. You did a great job pointing out how Ree’s character comes off more parent-like than sibling-like, and how this makes the search for her father that much more of an emotional roller coaster. While you pointed out how Ree’s parental instincts affect her role over the course of the novel, I feel you could have expanded on how it affected the people around her, for example, her brothers Harold and Sunny, and her mother Connie. Connie’s character does not really have much of a role throughout the novel except to serve as a platform to showcase Ree’s resilient abilities, but as Ree’s dynamic character morphs into more of a motherly role, we hear from Connie less and less. As Ree becomes the woman of the house and her search for her father becomes more intense, Sunny has more moments where we yearns to prove himself as more than just a little boy, but a mature, masculine leader. Additionally, you could have tied Ree’s motherly role into the theme of deepened familial ties/dynamics in rural settings, and how the Missouri Ozarks are a backdrop which Daniel Woodrell uses to showcase the complex relationships between members of her family and the people who live around her.
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