Throughout Winter’s Bone, Woodrell depicts the Ozarks as a loveless community where relationships are forged and broken in times of stress, heartbreak, and bleakness. By highlighting the relationship between Ree and her friend Gail, Woodrell helps to exhibit how their relationship in the Ozarks is formed and tested and allows the girls to meet their respective needs. While taking care of her family and searching for her father, Ree desires emotional support and a companion to help her through this stressful endeavor. Gail, who is alienated by her husband, seeks emotional and social intimacy. The girls find solace in meeting each other’s needs, especially in a community that suppresses love and companionship.
Many of the members of the Ozarks community are unable to find love through friends or partners, because several other needs are always competing for their attention. Whether they are dealing with stress, poverty, hunger, or other issues, these needs take priority over forming loving connections. For example, Ree must provide food, shelter, and life lessons for her younger brothers while also taking care of her mentally ill mother. She acts as a stand-in parent for the boys and teaches them numerous skills to help them survive, such as making deer stew (Woodrell 19). Like many other young adults, taking care of her siblings and being forced to grow up at a young age, Ree might be considered “dead to wonder” and “dulled to life” (Woodrell 8). She finds herself shielded from many forms of love or companionship, simply because she must take care of her family before attending to her own needs; however, her relationship with Gail allows her to explore the various forms of support that the friendship offers her.
Both Ree and Gail possess needs that are only met through their support for each other. Although Ree receives some love from her family, they do not offer the emotional support Ree needs. By having to take care of her family while also search for her father, Ree often finds herself isolated and trying to take on the world alone. Ree is not looking for romantic connections, as she expresses “I ain’t lookin’ to marry” (Woodrell 168). Instead, Ree is searching for the companionship that she finds with Gail. Similarly, Gail is looking for a sense of intimacy and trust with someone, as her husband is unable to provide these to her in their marriage. Gail cannot rely on her husband, but she can rely on Ree, which is illustrated when Gail is locked out of her house by Floyd, and Ree simply “held the quilts pulled wide, patted the sheet, and said, ‘One log alone won’t hold fire’” (Woodrell 101). The girls yearn for emotional support, intimacy, and a sense of trust in each other when they cannot find these qualities in other members of the community.
I agree with this interpretation. The community of the Ozarks is represented to be isolated and the families thrive by looking after their own and no one else. Ree and Gail have been hurt and left destitute by men, so they turn to each other for comfort and emotional support. They provide unconditional love for each other, and look after each other's needs in spite of living in a community that functions by fearing your neighbor and looking after your own. Ree has no one in the world who can take care of her, she is constantly even from such a young age the primary care taker of her entire family: her younger siblings, her mother, and her father. The only time she experiences love that she doesnt have to work for is with Gail. Gail provides care, companionship, and complete intimacy, which otherwise Ree does not receieve from anyone else. Gail looks after Ree when she takes a beating like a mother would, she is Ree's best friend from school, one of the only parts of Ree's life that resembles a normal childhood, and also is a romantic interest for Ree, where otherwise, as the post mentioned, Ree rejects the idea of marriage or romantic endeavors. Ree also provides home and care for Gail as she suffers in her marriage and in her role as a mother. Both girls create a family for each other through their bond.
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