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 34-35Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 34 Summary
Ree awakens to the sound of knocking at her door. She retrieves her shotgun before opening it and finds Mrs. Thump and her sisters waiting outside. Ree points the shotgun at Mrs. Thump, but Mrs. Thump ignores the threat and tells Ree to come with them so that they can fix Ree’s problems. Ree refuses to lower her gun and threatens Merab, Mrs. Thump, again, reminding Merab that she would have to be crazy to go anywhere with them.
Merab offers to take Ree to her sisters—an offer inspired by the need to put an end to the negative talk among the Dolly clans. Ree silences her misgivings and, unarmed and blindfolded, agrees to go with the sisters. With a sack over her head, Ree is driven to an unnamed location. Though the sisters promised not to harm her, Ree continues to believe they plan to kill her and prepares to meet her death without fear.
Merab removes the sack from Ree’s head and leads her through a wood toward a frozen pond. Once there, Merab points to a willow and tells her that Jessup’s body lies under it, tied down to an engine block. Ree notes that the vista forms a “living grave” (184) for her father. Ree uses an ax to shatter the ice that covers her father’s watery grave and has to feel around in the water for Jessup’s corpse. Once she has found him, she vomits and refuses to use a chainsaw to saw off his hands. Merab grows frustrated and offers to make the cuts herself. Ree loses her grasp on her father’s body once, when she feels herself splattered with his remains, but Merab reminds her that she needs both hands is she’s going to convince anyone he’s really dead. As she holds onto his corpse, Ree withdraws into herself until “She was on a distant tranquil shore where rainbow-colored birds sang and coconuts dropped bountifully to warm sand” (186).
Chapter 35 Summary
Ree returns home with Jessup’s hands and calls Deputy Baskin to tell him that she has the necessary evidence to prove her father is dead. The next morning, when Ree gives him the sack filled with Jessup’s remains, Baskin asks how Ree came to have them. In response, Ree tells him that an anonymous person threw the sack on the porch the night before. Baskin makes his skepticism clear, but he admits that he does not plan to investigate Ree’s story because he had liked Jessup.
Before he leaves, he tells Ree that the only reason he didn’t shoot Teardrop the night before Ree’s presence. Baskin assures Ree that “He never backed me down” (188). When Ree disagrees, Baskin tells her that she should not spread the story around to the rest of the town. Ree assures Baskin that she never talks about Baskin in general, at which Baskin leaves, yelling , “Sometimes I get so fuckin’ sick of you goddamn people, know it?” (188).
When her brothers return home from school, Ree informs them of their father’s death. When Harold asks Ree what heaven looks like, she responds, “Sandy. Lots of fun birds. Always sunny but never way hot” (188).
The following day, Ree cleans out Jessup’s shed and reminisces. She recalls the time her father spent teaching her to box and fight using a punching bag that still hangs in the shed, and later presents his old boxing gloves to her brothers, promising to teach them how to fight.
While she is teaching the boys the different stances, Teardrop drives up to the house. He appears tired, and Ree invites him in to talk. He offers to find Ree a job of some sort so that she can support her family. She refuses to be involved in the meth business, but Teardrop assures her there are other jobs. Teardrop, Ree, and the boys sit and watch the television for a while, until Mike Satterfield drives up to the house. Ree invites him in, and upon entering he sees and recognizes Teardrop, as his father had been a bail bondsman for Teardrop’s father.
Satterfield then presents Ree with a sack full of money, saying “you earned this with blood, kid” (191). The money is that used to secure Jessup’s bond; Satterfield doesn’t believes the anonymous man will claim the money. Hearing this, Teardrop leaves the house and begins pacing on the front porch. As Sonny and Harold look into the bag, Harold asks if the money means that Ree will leave the family several times. Ree does not immediately respond, as Satterfield is in the process of offering her a job working with his company, since they are the bail bondsmen for all the Dolly families in the area.
After Satterfield leaves, Teardrop returns appearing tense and shaken; he informs Ree that he knows who killed Jessup. At this declaration, Ree hugs Teardrop tightly and smells “the roiling blood and spirit of her own” (192). As she hugs Teardrop, she has a premonition that she is holding onto somebody already doomed and vanishing. She continues to hold him as she weeps, feeling that shadows are overwhelming them all.
Teardrop breaks the hug and leaves without another word. Ree sits on the porch, looking out at the yard, when her brothers come to sit beside her. Harold asks again if she is leaving them to join the army now, because of the money. She reassures them, “Naw. I’d get lost without the weight of you two on my back” (193). After sitting quietly for a while, Sonny asks what they should do with the money. Ree succinctly replies, “Wheels” (193).
Chapters 34-35 Analysis
Much happens in the last two chapters of the novel, and while they bring about the conclusion of Ree’s initial journey, Woodrell leaves much unsaid and uncertain. Mrs. Thump’s offer of assistance to find Jessup’s remains creates a tacit truce, though the rationale behind her offer is not entirely altruistic. Indeed, Mrs. Thump’s decision to help Ree stems from her desire to end the community gossip regarding their previous violent behavior. As such, Woodrell reiterates the importance of the kinship’s internal solidarity over moral obligations or reasoning.
Ree faces the discovery of her father’s grave with steady resolve. It is only after she is splattered with pieces of his corpse that she finds herself employing her escapism tactics. She creates her own tune and imagines a remote, tropical sanctuary. In doing so, she is able to mentally transport herself away from the filth, degradation, and corruption of her current surroundings. In a very literal sense, her father’s watery grave marks the point where the depravity of her community has invaded nature. This contamination forces Ree to imagine a natural world where such pollution cannot happen.
At the story’s conclusion, Woodrell once again foreshadows events without making them explicit. First, he avoids naming Jessup’s killer directly, although hints are given and Teardrop claims he knows the killer’s identity. Furthermore, Ree never directly responds to Satterfield’s job offer, even though she indicates at the end of the novel that she plans on staying in with her family, rather than fulfilling her dream of joining the Army. Lastly, Ree never articulates or fully explains why she has changed her mind regarding the future; instead, Woodrell leaves the reader with ambiguous hints. The only clear explanation that Ree gives the reader is that she plans on using the money to buy “wheels,” which suggests that she has resolved to buy freedom and independence—if not from the Ozarks or her family, at least from Rathlin Valley. Having a car, or transportation, will open up the possibility of travel, choice, and change for Ree; she can finally choose her own road. It’s just not clear to the reader what road that might be.
Woodrell leaves the reader in a state similar to Ree’s: uncertain of the future but feeling the shadows of fate encroaching on the house, the family, and the valley.
