73 pages • 2 hours read
Daniel WoodrellWinter's Bone
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 10-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary
Ree, Harold, and Sonny listen to the howls of coyotes while standing at the bus stop before school. Harold suggests they feed the coyotes so that the animals will not eat them out of hunger. Though Ree tells Harold there’s little chance of that, Sonny simply responds that they should shoot them. While Harold says that he would not shoot the wolves since they look like dogs, Ree tells them that although feeding the coyotes would seem like a kindness, it would only serve to bring them closer to danger from humans.
Ree boards the bus with her brothers and flirts harmlessly with the elder bus driver. After they reach the school, Ree says goodbye to her brothers, dismisses her former teachers’ gazes, and hitchhikes toward Hawkfall, despite Uncle Teardrop’s warnings. Once there, a woman greets Ree but claims she does not recognize the name of her hometown, because it “Might just about as well be Timbuktu to us” (50). The woman, who introduces herself as Megan, later admits that she recognizes Ree from family reunions and takes her to Little Arthur to further inquire after Jessup.
Little Arthur had visited Ree’s home the previous spring to cook meth. During his stay, he gave Ree mushrooms and they got high together. While she asks Little Arthur about Jessup’s current whereabouts, she recalls that hazy, drug-induced day when they “joined” in her “puddling embrace of gods and wonder” (55) which left her kneeling in the forest with ripped panties. Little Arthur denies any knowledge of Jessup’s location and tells her to leave unless she wants to do drugs with him.
After Ree and Megan leave, Ree is overwhelmed by the sudden realization that everyone knows her father has been killed but are refusing to speak to her about it. In response to Ree’s distress, Megan advises her to visit the patriarch, Thump Milton, who lives up the hill. Megan asks Ree to avoid mentioning her involvement, however, due to Thump Milton’s fearsome reputation.
Chapter 11 Summary
Ree walks up the hill toward Thump Milton’s and finds a robust woman watching her approach. The woman asks Ree who she is and assumes she has the wrong place. Ree and the woman discuss their various familial connections, but the woman quickly tells her to leave when she mentions speaking to Thump Milton. Though the woman remains skeptical, she allows Ree into the house once Ree reiterates the importance of their shared blood. Before she leaves to speak to Thump Milton, the woman wonders why Ree does not have a man to do this for her.
Ree awaits Thump Milton under a mimosa tree for over an hour, only to have the woman return with news of Thump’s refusal to speak to her. Thump Milton believes “Talkin’ just causes witnesses, and he don’t want for any of those” (61). The woman leaves to return to the house, but Ree remains and recalls the names of all the Miltons she knows. As she thinks about family names, Ree notes, “Some names could rise to walk many paths in many directions, but Jessups, Arthurs, Haslams, and Miltons were born to walk only the beaten Dolly path to the shadowed place, live and die in keeping with those blood-line customs fiercest held” (62). Ree continues to wait outside, and the woman eventually returns with a cup of soup for Ree. The woman tells Ree that Thump Milton knows about Ree’s mission and about her earlier enquiries in Hawkfall but does not want to speak to her. In parting, she advises Ree not to try to speak to him again. Ree responds by yelling that blood and family means nothing to Thump Milton, which causes the woman to throw the soup cup at Ree to silence her.
Chapter 12 Summary
Ree follows the railroad tracks as she leaves Hawkfall. As she walks, she sees fallen stone walls surrounding the town and thinks that her Dolly ancestors had been a fractious group that engendered lasting quarrels. Ree contemplates the mystical origin story of her family history regarding Haslam, Fruit of Belief and the Fist of Gods. Ree stops overnight in a cave and continues to think about the stories that recorded Dolly history—a reckoning that split the Hawkfall Dollys and provoked her Dolly ancestors to leave the Hawkfall Valley and live in caves. Ree smokes marijuana, strips off her clothes to dry them, and practices punching motions in the firelight. She thinks about her father’s death and wonders if, or where, the Hawkfall Dollys would have buried him.
Chapters 10-12 Analysis
Chapters 10-12 revolve around Ree’s visit to Hawkfall to search for answers. Although she doesn’t learn much, her trip illustrates the profound isolationism of the clans as well as their distrust of outsiders. At first, Ree believes that she will be granted clemency, or at least sympathy, due to her Dolly name, but she quickly realizes that the different families have long-standing rivalries that regulate relations. Later, Ree provides some back-story for the reader as she considers the folkloric origin-story of Haslam, Fruit of Belief and their godhead, The Fist of Gods. These beliefs still influence the communities, and Ree alludes to an argument that split the Dolly clans long ago. These grievances continue, much like the broken bones that mended wrong.
Ree’s account of the history of the Dolly clan also refers to her ancestors living in caves after leaving Hawkfall Valley. The origin story then takes on a new beginning, as the caves act as a form of womb for her people. They form a natural sanctuary for her people, one she takes refuge in after she leaves Hawkfall Valley and one which she later plans to take refuge in if the Dollys lose their house. These parallels reiterate the cyclical nature of the Dolly existence.
The predetermined fate of the Dollys is further explicated in these chapters as well, notably in the common, repeated names of the Dolly men. As Ree notes to herself, several of these names seem to determine a man’s future. This is why Ree and Connie fought Jessup for Harold’s name, in the hopes that a different name change could engender a different future—a choice of future—that other Dolly men do not have.
