In Winter's Bone, Woodrell depicts a tight-knit community set on protecting its members at all costs. The Miltons and Dollys keep to themselves, rarely interacting with other extended family members outside of their geographical areas. Both clans are also quite apprehensive and distrusting of the law, stemming from many male family members' involvement with cooking and using crank. Loyalty and duty to kinship are at the heart of the families' values, demonstrated many times throughout the novel.
Ree Dolly, the 16-year-old heroine of the novel, does everything for the survival of her mother and two younger brothers. Although often brusque in her demeanor, Ree upholds a sense of care and duty to her family, from dressing and washing her mother daily to teaching her brothers to shoot guns, cook dinner, and skin squirrels for food. Prior to the novel's beginning, Ree learned to take on both a maternal and paternal role in her family due to her mother's mental illness and her father's absence. When she learns that her father, Jessup, has put the family home up for his bond but has not been seen in months, Ree embarks on a search for her father, knowing it is the only way to save her family's home. She goes as far as visiting Hawkfall despite a warning from her uncle, where extended Milton family members live. In a moment of resistance after withstanding a brutal beating from the Miltons, Ree says, "I can't listen. I can't just listen" (Woodrell 132). Despite the potential threat of further violence and even death, Ree defies the Miltons' ways on the principle of duty to her family and their home. She must act and do anything to find her father, even if it results in her own demise.
Loyalty to kinship is central to the values of the Miltons. While driving home after saving Ree from the Miltons, Uncle Teardrop reveals the reason for Jessup's disappearance, stating, "Jessup went'n turned snitch, and that's only the biggest ancient no-no of all, ain't it?" (Woodrell 140). Jessup's lack of loyalty to the Miltons directly defied the family's values, leading to his disappearance and eventual murder. Jessup's killing explains the lack of help Ree receives in finding her father, as earlier in the novel, Ree visits Thump Milton, the patriarch of the family. When she is turned away by his wife, she says, "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?" (Woodrell 63). Despite appealing to the Miltons' values, Ree is left unanswered about her father's whereabouts. The Miltons initially show loyalty to their own and choose to protect the member that killed Jessup. However, the female members, Thump's wife and her sisters, eventually show some loyalty to Ree and the Dollys by taking her to the site of her father's body so she can retrieve his hands and retain the family house. Despite the conflicts between Ree and the Miltons, their kinship ultimately leads to the loyalty shown to her in the novel's conclusion.
I'm glad that you've addressed the loyalty and rules systems that exist between these two families. Though neither of these are explicitly described, mostly in part to the disorganization of the families, they are universally known. In a way, this makes the rules and bonds even stronger. Since the only way that these rules remain is word of mouth and memory, they become ever further ingrained into the minds of those who abide by them, even making the rules a proud part of their community. This importance also leads to the extreme costs that you address, being violence, exile, and even murder. Ree tries not to reject the rules, per say, but to work within them to her means. More so, Ree uses the established relationships to her advantage, which she wouldn't have been able to do if she were like her father. As you point out, she's denied of information about her father at first due to a lack of trust, but manages to build trust with other women around her to eventually get the information she wants. She still pays, but unlike her father, she is able to complete the goal she set out for. The unwritten rules between these two familes are both the primary obstacle and biggest tool for Ree throughout in the novel, a peak into how longstanding traditions hold up.
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