E-Portfolio English 102: 2012

Gender Roles: The Real Meaning Behind Daniel Woodrell, Winter’s Bone


From EW.com

Is one destined to live life based on traditional gender roles? Disney/Pixar explored this question recently in the movie Brave. Merida is pressured by her family to fulfill her role as a young woman and eventual Queen. She was expected to be the demur obedient daughter, who would become the proper Queen. Her hand was to be given to a clan prince who won a competition. Merida saw a different future for herself. She loved to ride horse, climb rocks, and shoot arrows, all not proper of a future Queen. She defied her traditional role so much that she endangered herself, her family and her clan. The conclusion of Brave illustrates how Merida’s actions changed how she, her family and her clan viewed traditional roles. Much like the writers of Brave challenged traditional gender roles, Daniel Woodrell wrote Winter’s Bone to explore traditional gender roles and the ramifications of challenging these roles. Woodrell uses Ree and Jessup to express his disdain for traditional gender roles and authority. Ree and Jessup must defy the hillbilly law they live by just as Woodrell defied authority in his life. Winter’s Bone defines traditional gender roles, including hierarchy within each gender class. The story has Ree’s father defying these roles because of the love for his immediate family and Ree defying these roles because of the absence of her father.

From dvdbeaver.com

Ree’s life deep in the Ozarks is a parallel to the life Daniel Woodrell lives. As a young man Woodrell grew up in the St. Louis suburbs until the age of fifteen when his father moved the family to Kansas City. He hated Kansas City so much that at the age of seventeen, dropped out of high school to join the Marines: “I said I’ll go to Vietnam before I spend another week in this fucking suburb.” (Williams 2). Woodrell hated the structure and authority of the military so much that in eighteen months he found himself discharged because of his drug use. He then went to a highly respected writing College where all his professors were idiots, again showing his disdain for authority: “I didn’t think most of the teachers amounted to much” (2). Woodrell lives currently in the West Plains deep in the Ozark Mountains, very close to the house his mother grew up in. He lives up the hill from a town much like the one he writes about in Winter’s Bone. A town riddled with run-down homes where crystal-meth cook houses dot the beautiful backdrop of the Ozark Mountains. Winter’s Bone like Methland by Nick Reding are about small towns time has long forgotten. What industry that may have existed has dried up. What is left behind is methamphetamine. Reding and Woodrell see these small towns consumed by methamphetamine. Woodrell hated traditional gender roles because of his strict childhood. He sees himself as a rebel against these roles. Woodrell used the methamphetamine culture of the Ozarks as a backdrop for Winter’s Bone where he expresses these feelings through his characters.

From culturesnob.net

Woodrell gives his reader an inside look at the sociology of the people of the Ozarks. Within the social structure the people of the Ozarks follow a traditional gender structure. The men are the dominant head-of-household, the women submissive caretakers, and the clan is law. This follows the belief that Southern attitude toward gender are more traditional (Coates 1). Woodrell highlights traditional women’s roles in the Ozarks. The women are socialized from birth on their roles within the family. They learn these roles by watching the other women in the family. The women are responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the home. Women work in the home preparing the meal, and laundering the clothing. Women are emotional, empathetic, and sensitive to other’s feelings. This assists them in the primary caretaking of the children, raising and educating them. Women are not to question the men in the decisions and must always ask permission before they can do anything. If a woman steps out of line there will be some form of coercion, whether it is a physical or emotional action. Women’s actions are ruled by the men and the men are the authority over the women. Woodrell is able to effectively describe the gender roles in the Ozarks because he grew up with strong gender roles, his mother is from the Ozarks, and he currently lives there.

From excell.monster.com

Woodrell illustrates the male’s roles in Winter’s Bone to be that of the authoritarian. Society has been socialized to see men as strong, brave and head of household. Woodrell adds the element of authoritarian. The men are the decision makers. The women cannot act without the complete approval of the man of the house. He and he alone sets the tone for what the women can do and how they will do it. The man of the house expresses more anger than the women. When the men show emotion it is communicated by dominance either physical or emotional. The men are the power and the authority in the family and no one is to question them. Woodrell relates first hand to this male dominance by his father’s decision to move his family to Kansas City, which Woodrell hated. The final element of the social structure within the Ozark culture is the clan.

Woodrell describes the clan as having a set of rules the members must follow. One should never ask for something to be given to them, one should wait for it to be offered. Never ask questions, leave well enough alone. Having blood relations is important. The family matters. Women should not talk but listen. One should never go against the clan. The clan is seen as the law not the local or state government. If there is a disagreement within the clan, one must settle the disagreement within the clan. Never bring in the law. Woodrell explains that the most important rule of the clan is to never snitch. A snitch is someone who goes against the clan and gives incriminating evidence against the clan. If one of the clan members snitches they would pay with their life. Woodrell is emphasizing the confidentiality within the clan because it is required in order for the clan to maintain their livelihood and order. Woodrell uses the clan to illustrate the authority figures in his life.

From wadeburleson.org

In a Winter’s Bone Woodrell challenges these traditional roles and in the end, through his characters, forces a change. With Ree’s father Jessup leaving the house for bond and disappearing, Ree is forced to go against her roles within the clan. Ree finds herself having to question her clan as to the whereabouts of her father. She is forced into the role of the man and must confront the other males in the clan. This goes against the clan law of not asking questions and keeping to oneself: “Don’t you nor nobody else, neither, ever go down around Hawkfall askin’ them people shit about stuff they ain’t offerin’ to talk about” (25). Every male clan member she confronts continues to tell her to go home and tend to her ill mother and younger brothers, telling her this is man’s work. The men of the clan follow the law and send their women to try and reason with Ree. Ree wants to question Milton, but Milton’s wife comes out and tells Ree Milton won’t see her and to go away. Ree is drawn to do whatever she needs to do to keep the house and land. She sees herself as both mother and father, female and male. Ree must change to insure the survival of her immediate family. The males in Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone see Ree as a nuisance that just needs to go home and cook, clean, and take care of her brothers. Woodrell illustrates this when he is referring to Gail going back home to her husband, “come on home, sweetheart – soap’s under the sink” (121). The male clan members’ reference that Ree has no taste for crack, referring to the fact that she is not a man and should not try making male decisions and taking male actions and therefore should go home and take care of her brothers and mother. At every quest for Ree to find her father the male members of her clan keep trying to get Ree to conform to her gender role, to no avail. Ree continues to push the men so she visits Milton’s house again. In an effort to get Ree to conform to her role she is beaten badly. Her Uncle Teardrop shows up and wants answers to who beat Ree. The other women of the clan step forward to take responsibility for the beating. If the women didn’t take responsibility for the beating Teardrop would have had to respond with violence against the other male clan members but because the women did the beating it was ok. Even after the beating Ree holds her head high and will not give up her quest to find her father and save her immediate family. Every step Ree takes to find her father is challenging the law of her clan, the Dolly clan. The mere fact that she was a female and was asking around for her father was against the rules of the clan and gender. One doesn’t ask questions or go against the clan’s ways. These rules are important to follow, it is part of their society and Teardrop illustrates this, “I ain’t never said a single fuckin word about my brother. I ain’t asked nobody about my brother…” (Woodrell 137). It was not Teardrop’s place to challenge the clan regarding his brother’s fate. However he was obligated to revenge his niece’s beating unless the beating was done by women.

From overthinkingit.com

Jessup, Ree’s father, challenges these traditional roles and by becoming a snitch, makes the ultimate sacrifice for the love of his immediate family. Jessup comes from a long line of either moonshiners or methamphetamine cookers, and embraces his gender role. He has girlfriends outside his marriage, leaves his ill wife and three children to fend for themselves, only returning from time to time to throw money at them and leave again. His life is centered on himself and his addiction. He takes little or no responsibility for his family. Jessup is for Jessup and the rest must get along without his help. This changes when Jessup is arrested and must put up the family home for bond. He knows he will be going to jail and his immediate family will lose the house and have nothing. Faced with this situation Jessup makes the biggest step away from how he has been socialized his entire life. He turned his clan in to save his home and to provide for his immediate family: “Jessup went’n turned snitch, and that’s only the biggest ancient no-no of all” (Woodrell 140). This is the worst thing one can do against the clan. This resulted in Jessup being killed by the clan. He stepped away from what he’d know his entire life to save his immediate family. Jessup became a loving caring father that was typically absent in the men of the Ozarks. One who puts the interest of the immediate family ahead of the interest of the clan. Later in his life, Woodrell realized that the choices his father made were in the best interest of his family at the time.

Woodrell sees himself as a nonconformist and identifies with Ree is his book. Woodrell rebelled against his family structure in his teenage years just as Ree did in a Winter’s Bone. Woodrell defied his traditional family roles by leaving home and joining the Marines at seventeen just as Ree did when she was forced to take on her father’s role in her family at sixteen. The consequences of these decisions lead to life changing experiences for Woodrell, Ree and the clan. Woodrell believes in questioning authority and values, not just excepting what is passed down through generations. This is illustrated in his portrayal of the Ozark society and the consequences of challenging its traditional roles.

Works Cited

Brave. Dir. Mark Andrews, Steve Purcell, Brenda Chapman. Walt Disney Pictures, 2012.Film

Coates, Diane L. “Gender Role Attitudes in The Southern United States.” Gender & Society

December (1995): 744-756. Web. 11 July. 2012. http://gas.sagepub.com/content/9/6/744.short.

Williams, John. “DanielWoodrell: The Ozark daredevil.” The Independent 16 June 2006. Web.1

July.2012. http://www.independent.com.uk/arts-entertainment/books/feature/daniel- woodrell-

the-ozark-daredevil- .html.

Woodrell, Daniel. Winter's Bone. New York: Bay Back Books. Little, Brown and Company.
2006. Print.

E-Portfolio English 102

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