WINTER'S BONE

WINTER'S BONE

Ree is the Matriarch ree and family

The Male Characters

Jessup Dolly

Jessup Dolly is the father of Ree and Harold Dolly. He is also the husband of Connie Dolly. Although Connie is also the mother of Sonny, it is eluded to that Jessup is not Sonny's father: "Ree'd been made in that bed, and she'd caught Mom and Blond Milton making Sonny there on a slow sweaty morning" (pg 43).

Character Description Jessup Dolly is described as being one of the best crank chefs in Rathlin Valley: "Shit, Jessup's just about the best crank chef these Dolly's and them had ever had, girl. Practically half famous for it" (pg 14). He is also described as being a promise breaker, never truly there when his wife or children need him: "He had not set food by nor money, but promised he'd be back soon as he could with a paper sack of cash and a trunkload of delights (pg 4).

[Ree is ordered to cut off Jessup's hands in order to show evidence to the State that Jessup is dead and therefore, was not able to show for trial] ]

Uncle Teardrop

Floyd Langan

Thump Milton

The Female Characters

Gail Lockrum

Connie Dolly

Ree Dolly

Victoria

Merab Milton

Patriarchy

THEMES

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Mentally Ill: "Mom's mind didn't break loose and scatter to the high weeds until Ree was twelve and around then is when she learned about Dad's new girlfriend" (30). The blame is placed on Jessup's affairs.

Drug Trade

Social Banditry

Jessup is simultaneously the problem and the solution to Ree and her family. Ree blames him for his mother losing her sanity and it is his involvement in the illicit drug making which almost loses the Dolly's their family home. The ending of the novel takes a dark turn as Ree has to cut off Jessup's hands from his dead corpse, as evidence that her father was dead and unable to make his court date: "Why'd you let go? You'll need both hands or sure as shit they'll say he cut one off to keep from goin' to prison. They know that trick"(186).

Floyd is the husband of Gail Lockrum. He is unable to remain faithful to Gail and continues to see his 'bit on the side' Heather, his real love: He'd been steady in love with Heather Powney since junior high... he'd gotten drunk and come across Gail... and sat with her in his car listening to thrash metal while the windows fogged... suddenly Floyd became a husband with a kid and Heather Powney didn't always take his calls anymore" (33).

Unable to remain faithful to his wife and only thinks of her as the mother to his unplanned and unwanted child and nothing else: "Don't hang around too long. She's got that kid now" (33). Floyd is also reluctant to give up his affair with Heather: "The big deal is that goddamn Heather - you've got to quit f*ckin' Heather... Floyd did'nt say a word... Floyd lit a cigarette, then got to his feet and went outside" (pg 120).

Ree is the matriarch of the Dolly family. She takes care of her younger brothers and is also a carer for her mentally ill mother.

Character Description: "Ree, brunette and sixteen, with milk skin and abrupt green eyes... she stood tall in combat boots"

Ree is beaten up by Merab and her sisters after trying to get answers about her father ree beaten up

Fell pregnant out of wedlock and therefore had to marry a man she barely knew: "Gail Lockrum, Ree's best friend, had been required by preganancy to marry Floyd Langan" (31)).

[Ree goes to visit Gail and encounters Floyd in the house as well]

Ree is the Matriarch ree and family

Visual image of Teardrop

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Feminism

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Mental Fragility

Megan said, "if he's been runnin' on crank for a day or two, you should just leave, honey. Don't try'n make sense to him when he's like that, 'cause he just can't do it behind that much shit" (52). Most of the male characters are addicted to Meth. Characters like Jessup are both crank chefs and users.

Vicotria asks Ree if she wants a "doobie" rolled for her walk. The novels promotes the normalisation of drugs and their recreational and/or abusive use

The Patriarch of the Milton clan

Little Arthur

Character Description "Little Arthur was a little-man mix of swagger and tongue, with a trailing history of deeds that vouched for his posture. He had a mess of dark hair and dark bristly eyes, with sparse curly whiskers and bitter teeth

Sexually abused Ree after drugging her with 'mushrooms': "he'd hugged her to the ground and she'd felt a tremendous melting of herself, a leaking from one shape into some other form, and she'd been turned about by his hugs to kneel, and her skirt flipped up and Little Arthur knelt to join in her puddling embrace of gods and wonder" (pg 54-55).

When Victoria speaks out out of line to Teardrop he threatens her with physical violence: "I said shut up once already, with my mouth" (25).

Ree is warned by Uncle Teardrop to not get involved in a man's personal business: "That's a man's personal choice, little girl. That's not somethin' you oughta be buttin' your smarty nose into" (23).

Ree defies the orders of the patriarchy and tells Merab and her sisters that she is unable to follow orders: "why didn't you listen?" to which Ree responds "I can't listen. I can't just listen" (132).

Women in the novel carry out the vicious attack on Ree. The women are more active than the men in the novel: "No man here touched that crazy girl!" "No man did?" "I drubbed her good myself" "Me and my sisters, they were here, too" (136).

Ree is unafraid of the patriarchy when she passes on a message to Thump Milton, the patriarch of the Milton clan: "So, come the nut-cuttin', blood don't truly mean shit to him. Am I understandin' right? Blood don't truly count for diddly to the big man? Well, you can tell the big man for me I hope he has him a long, long life full of nothin' but hiccups'n the runs, hear? You tell him Ree Dolly said that" (63).

Thump Milton's refusal to talk to Ree: "He won't talk much to women" (60).

"The boys had never known Mom when her parts were gathered... Mom only seldom walked farther than the kitchen" (175)

"Mom's mind didn't break loose and scatter to the high weeds until Ree was twelve and around then is when she learned about Dad's new girlfriend" (30).

"Mom, I need you. Mom - look at me. Look at me, Mom. Mom, I'm goin' to need you to help. There's things happenin' that I don't know what to do about. Mom? Look at me, Mom. Mom?" (118).

It is the female characters who help and instruct Ree on what her best choice of options are - Megan and Victoria. Megan advises Ree that she might have to go and visit Thump Milton if she wishes to find out where her father might possibly be: "Don't tell nobody it was me told you this, okay? But, the way I'm gettin' it is, you're goin' to have to go up the hill'n ask for a talk with Thump Milton... he's the one who could know an answer for you" (57).

Megan informs Ree that she will have to go to Thump if she has any chance of finding out teh truth about her father: "he's the one who could known an answer for you. Thump's the one who could" (57). Megan is Thump's granddaughter. She tells Ree that he may have the answer to her questions therefore, suggesting his high status in Hawkfall.

Key: If two male and female character colours are the same, these characters are either married or each other's partners. If a line is dashed then that particular character is dead.

Character Description: He was a nudge over six feet tall but had fidgeted his weight way down and become all muscle wires and bone knobs with a sunken belly" (23).

Also a crank chef but had suffered injuries because of his involvement in the drug trade: "Uncle Teardrop was Jessup's elder and had been a cranl chef longer but he'd had a lab go wrong and it had eaten the left ear off his head and burned a savage melted scar down his neck to the middle of his back (23).

Character Description: She was a tall blunt-boned woman made lush in her sections with long auburn hair she usually wore rolled up into a heavy wobbly bun" (21).

Victoria is the wife of Uncle Teardrop. However she is not the only woman he has been married to as Ree denotes that: "Victoria had once been number three and was now number five" (21).

Victoria is able to use her intelligence to talk to Teardrop and help Ree in her mission to find her father: "Victoria motioned Ree to sit still, the slowly followed him. She pulled the door shut and whispered something... Teardrop says you best keep your ass real close to the willows, dear... she dropped fifty dollars... He hopes this helps" (27).

INTELLIGENT

KIND HEARTED

UNTRUSTWORTHY

CRIMINAL

DRUG ADDICT

SEXUAL PREDATOR

RESPECTED

FEARED

BETRAYER

SOCIAL BANDIT

Gail is trapped by her marriage and unable to escape from it: "It's different once you're married" to which Ree responds: "Must be. Must really be. You never used to eat no shit. No shit at all" (35).

Ree goes to visit Gail

While Jessup was in prison, Connie had illict affairs with men. She'd often be abused and neglected: "it was those terrible ass-whippings she'd taken during one-night stands, motel quickies with fellas from the Bar Circle Z Ranch or handsome tramps in town that hung with her" (42).

MENTALLY ILL

ABUSED

ADULTERESS

Very connected to her family and understands the Milton - Dolly connection: "Please - I am a Dolly! Some of our blood at least is the same. That's s'posed to mean somethin' - ain't that what is always said? " (59).

Character Description: "A long-jawed man's face with an iron-shaded spade beard and careful fingers" (60).

She warns Ree not to return to the house and ask any more questions about Jessup: "Now, go, get on away from here... and don't come back'n try'n ask him twice. Just don't" (63).

BLOND MILTON

Character Description: Blond Milton was a grandfather in age but not in manner, square-shouldered and flat bellied, fair-haired with ruddy skin... he was most always clean, barbered, talced, smelling of bay rum and armed with two pistols" (72)

Tries to make Ree believe that her father died in a meth lab accident: "That right there's the last place me or anybody seen Jessup... you cook long enough, this's bound to happen" (75).

FATHER FIGURE TO REE

Jealous at her husbands inability to remain faithful: "it's her who he wants. I'm just what he's got" (82).

Viciously attacks Ree along with her sisters: "she pulled her big hand back to whack Ree another in the face" (129).

Merab and her sisters are concerned about what the other people in the novel say about her attack on Ree. Permelia says: "There's never no call to do a girl like that" (144). Meanwhile, Sonya comments that: "Merab's got a short fuse" (144).

Teardrop and Ree

Opening Scene

"Ain't you got no men could do this" (60). Ree oversteps her place by asking questions and doing things which only a man should be doing.

"Dad's hands brought sorrow and a blessing" (187). Jessup is the solution to the problem.

Ree has a sexual interest in her best friend Gail. It is hinted in the narrative on a few occasions that she may possibly have lesbian desires: "Ree said 'You didn't like it? You gonna tell me you didn't like it?" (160).

Connie was once described as being youthful and beautiful. This is then juxtaposed with the imagery of mind being frayed "She was a Bromont... once been pretty. Long, dark, and lovely she had been, in those days before her mind broke and the parts scattered and she let them go" (6).

WOODRELL PRESENTS CONNIE AS HAVING UNDERGONE A TRANSFORMATION.

Selfish: Put his family at risk by putting everything he owned as his bond

Teardrop saves Ree at the Milton house after she is beaten to a pulp: "You hit her?" he asks Little Arthur. He responds "What'll you do if I did?" to which Teardrop says: "Say yes'n see" (136).

"Mom's morning pills turned her into a cat, a breathing thing that sat near heat and occasionally made a sound" (6).

SHORT TEMPERED

BULLY

PROTECTIVE OF HER FAMILY