Discussion Topic
Summary and key events of Winter's Bone
Summary:
Winter's Bone follows 17-year-old Ree Dolly as she searches for her missing father in the Ozarks to save her family from eviction. Key events include Ree's confrontations with dangerous relatives, her investigation into her father's criminal activities, and her discovery of his death. The story highlights themes of survival, family loyalty, and resilience in a harsh environment.
What are the key events in Winter's Bone?
In the film, the protagonist, Ree Dolly, searches for her missing father, Jessup, a meth cook who has used the family home as bond to get out of jail. If he doesn’t show up for his court date, Ree, her two siblings, and her traumatized mother will lose their home. So, in terms of plot, one of the most important events in the film is the event that triggers the action, which is the visit by the police to tell her that her father has gone missing and what the consequences will be. This causes Ree to decide to find him for herself and leads her through many scary encounters with members of her extended family, all of whom play roles in the extensive drug trade.
The climax has to be her confrontation with the family patriarch/drug kingpin Thump, who clearly has had Jessup killed for cooperating with the...
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police. Ree is beaten (as a mercy, instead of being killed), but Thump’s wife, Merab, in a terrifying sequence, takes pity on Ree. Merab leads her to the place in a pond where Jessup’s body has been dumped and helps Ree sever the hands from the corpse with a chainsaw. Ree uses the hands to prove to the police that her father is dead, thus saving her family's house.
I have to say the hand-severing sequence is probably the “most important” moment of the film—not only does it solve Ree’s problem, but it frames in an extremely visceral way the central theme of family and of women’s role as the preserver of family. Leaving aside the fact that Ree must literally dismember her father to preserve her home, the scene underscores the bizarre morality that allows Merab to support her husband on the one hand and uphold a kind of family honor on the other.
The plot of Winter's Bone begins to take off when Ree Dolly, a young girl with a mentally ill mother, two young siblings and a missing meth making father finds out that unless her dad shows up to court, the family will lose their land and home to the government, as her father put them up for bail. This starts her quest to find her father, dead or alive.
But no one else wants him to be found, especially Ree's other shirttail relatives that are responsible for his disappearance. As Ree gets more desperate, the more questions she asks of the wrong people. This leads to her being severely beaten. Her Uncle Teardrop steps in and saves her, but escalates the stakes at the same time.
The climax of the story comes when the wives of the men who killed her father take Ree to her father's body, and force her hold her father's arms up out of a freezing cold pond while the women sever his hands. In this way his fingerprints can prove to the police that he's dead, and Ree can save her home.
After the horror of that scene, the bail bondsman shows up with the bag of cash the drug dealers bailed him out with, giving Ree and her family a new lease on life.
Can you provide a summary of Winter's Bone?
Winter's Bone is about a sixteen-year-old girl named Ree Dolly. She lives with her mother and younger siblings Ashlee and Sonny in the Ozarks. Her father is absent because he was arrested for making crystal meth.
The town sheriff comes one day and tells Ree that her father is missing. The sheriff also explains that Ree’s father put his family’s house up for bond. This means that if her father does not show up for his court date, her family will lose their home. The situation makes Ree determined to find her father and she sets off to track him down.
Ree’s journey is an eventful one. She learns that her father is dead, but the police require evidence of this in order to save the house. With an independent spirit and help from characters like her best friend Gail, Ree presses on. Her journey to find evidence involves her getting beaten, lied to, and ultimately having to cut her father’s corpse with a chainsaw. Overall the book explores ideas of family ties, gender disparities, and psychological trauma.