In class, we discussed the idea that
the character of Ree might read as unnaturally strong, able to face almost any
hardship and overcome it. Since we already went into detail explaining why Ree
may be like this, be it circumstantial to how she would’ve been raised in the
Ozarks or simply a failure of the author, I think it’s important to continue
this conversation into the outcome of this characterization. In my opinion,
that Ree is, in many cases, unnaturally strong serves to greatly benefit the plot
and pacing of the book, but fails to make her someone who can be related to.
The beating
of Ree at the hands of Thump Milton’s wife and her cohorts is a great example
to refer to when showing Ree’s unnatural strength. She was a 16-year-old girl,
beaten within an inch of her life, yet she somehow survived well enough to
(relatively) quickly take back over some household duties and even to complete
the mystery of her father’s death. Teardrop remarks that she “took that beatin’
good as most men [he’s] seen,” and the whole community rallies behind her
incredible bravery to have faced such a terrifying situation (148). We know how
short of a time frame she has to recover because it had to be within the 30
days that Mike Satterfield informed her of. She moves on from the beating to
continue her life, and it’s a thing of the past.
To the book’s
plot and pacing, Ree’s ability to move quickly on from a potentially deadly set
of injuries and continue searching for the body of her father without the need
for long-term rest is key. If the book had to go on hold waiting for Ree to recover
from every scary, painful, or seemingly life-destroying that happened to her,
it would not be able to have the sense of urgency that it holds in putting a
time limit on Ree’s search for her father. As I mentioned before, when Mike
says that she’s “probably got [her house] about another thirty days,” it places
a time limit on the hunt she faces and necessitates that she keep moving forward
at a constant rate, no matter what happens.
Where this
becomes a problem is that it makes Ree a character who might seem hard to
relate to and even inhuman at times. To recover from those kinds of injuries in
that time frame is incredible, inconceivable to most. As I read the book I often
felt hopeless reading about each challenge that Ree faced, challenges in a line
that was seemingly neverending. Ree doesn’t express herself much, and we don’t
really see her face any hint of hopelessness. In this, she becomes hard to
connect to—someone so able to move on from incredible hardships without
emotional reaction seems almost more robot than human.
While Ree’s
incredible motivation to find her dad, leading to an incredible ability to move
past pain, is a very helpful device for the plot of the novel, it left me as a
reader feeling that the potential of her character wasn’t fully utilized.
Sometimes it’s worth a longer novel and some inner monologues to really be able
to relate to a character.
I find your analysis of Ree’s character very interesting, and I completely agree that she is written unnaturally strong, both mentally and physically. Not only, as you mentioned, does she survive and recover quickly from a brutal beating but she also walked back from Thump Milton’s house alone in the snow and we don’t see her dealing with the negative side effects of being exposed to such cold temperatures for such a long time. She sits outside Milton’s house and literally has ice form on her but then she walks back and “became ice as she walked” (Woodrell 64). Your body and muscles start to freeze at some point and realistically she wouldn’t have made it home the way she did. She even stays in a cave for a while and proceeds to take off all of her clothes to dry them over wet wood (which shouldn’t have caught fire either). I found that scene very hard to believe, especially considering she is only 16. Her character reads like someone made up by a man trying to a strong female character that female readers can relate to. It almost seems as though Woodrell views her character as a compliment to women because Ree is so different from the dainty female characters in other novels, but we don’t want an unrealistically resilient woman, we want someone we can relate to and identify with.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this post. Throughout the book, I learned a lot about the Dollys, the Ozarks, and their life of poverty and drugs, but I didn't learn much about Ree. While I understand Woodrell perhaps made this choice to keep the plot going, I found myself wishing that Ree would show any sort of emotion or even just any weakness at all. Within the context of the book, she's an admirable character. She takes care of her mother and brothers, she's a great friend to Gail, she's able to fulfill all the responsibilities needed to keep the household running, she's almost prodigiously physically strong, and she still manages to be pretty even after getting beat up. Oh, and she's doing this all in a dress. While I enjoyed Winter's Bone and thought it was an engrossing, well-written novel, I began to dislike Ree as a character simply because she didn't seem human. Her perfection made her uninteresting as a main character. In general I'm wary of teenage girls written by adult men, and I don't think the characterization of Ree was one of the high points of Winter's Bone. The main characters in the other books we've read have not been perfect people by any means, and that relatability makes them more interesting for us as readers compared to the "Mary Sue" trope that Ree seems to fulfill.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your character assessment of Ree. Throughout the novel, Ree demonstrates an unnatural ability to preserve through terrible trauma without so much of a tear. Although, I admire Ree's incredible toughness, I agree that her unwavering strength and unwillingness to show pain made her difficult to relate to as a character. I also agree with your claim that Ree's strength serves as a tool to maintain the fast pace of the novel. You skillfully analyze how Ree's personal strength is both a tool and a hinderance to the novel as a whole. To emphasize this point, you examine the consequences of Ree being beat within an inch of her life. You aptly point out that Ree's recovery from those injuries is incredibly fast and that Ree's lack of expression during this recovery is difficult to relate to. You assert that her lack of expression seems to be more robotic, and less human. However, Ree is faced with a very demanding crisis, one that leaves her no room for emotional expression. Although it is difficult to relate to her robotic features, Ree's response of action over expression in a time of such crisis is common among people. Ree's lack of relatable emotion is a tool she's developed through the difficult hardships in her life and it serves her during her current crisis of facing eviction. I agree with your overall assessment that Ree is difficult to relate to because of her lack of expression and unnatural strength. However, I find her lack of emotion and unnatural strength to be very realistic in such a crisis.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this posting that Ree is sometimes written to be unrealistically strong, which makes her hard to relate to for the average person; however, it is essential to the plot line for Ree to be able to bounce back from all of the hardships she faces. Her toughness allows the book to keep it’s sense of urgency, and even though it does make Ree hard to relate to, I think that can be overlooked because her resilience is essential to the plot of the book. Ree is physically and mentally tough. Her mental toughness can be seen when she is told by the officer hunting Jessup that she will only have her house for about thirty more days, and instead of breaking down she keeps on hunting for Jessup’s body. She demonstrates physical resilience when she is able to recover from being beaten nearly to death by Thump Milton’s wife and her sisters. This recovery is integral to the storyline because her recovery allows her to keep on looking for Jessup. Ree is extremely tough up until the end of the book when she has a breakdown and finally shows emotion by crying. I think this breakdown helps humanize her a little, but I agree that her toughness up until this point makes her hard to relate to.
ReplyDeleteI don’t completely agree with this analysis. As we mentioned in the class discussion, not everyone will have the same automatic reaction to trauma, some people just push it into their subconscious and move on right away. As a person who has had to go through hardship their whole life, Ree has probably seen or experienced many horrible things. So, to me it makes sense that she would be such a hard character. When a person is put through so much stress and trauma constantly, they will probably react the way that Ree did. If she was completely numb to the crazy situations she is put through, then would she had questioned sawing off her own father’s hands. Her response would likely not have been “oh, no, shit. No” (Woodrell 185). At this moment, it seems like the impact of all that she has gone through starts to dawn on her. Considering the circumstance she is in, her responses feel realistic. Some people are just more emotional than others and the past affects how people show these feelings. We need to consider all types of reactions to trauma before we say it is not realistic. Each person has their own way of digesting these sorts of things and this is just how Ree can handle her situation.
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