At sixteen years of age, Ree
Dolly should be in high school, enjoying her youthful years of limited
responsibility. However, an absent father and a sick mother has quickly put her
in a position in which she must become the head of her family. Through Ree
Dolly’s portrayal, Woodrell shows a glimpse into the hardships of life in the
Ozarks, a region in which an isolated and meth-stricken community can get the
best of even the youngest.
At the beginning of the novel, Ree assumes a seemingly
temporary position of responsibility, with her father having promised to return
“with a paper sack of cash and a trunkload of delights” (Woodrell 4). However,
soon after, Ree’s necessity to search for her meth-cook father to save her home
puts a major weight on her shoulders at a young age. Ree quickly realizes that “she’d
never get away from her family as planned” and “she’d never have only her own
concerns to tote” (Woodrell 15). Her brothers are now her dependents, and she
must act as both a mother and a father to them.
Ree shows her brothers how to cook, shoot, and hunt. At
the same time, she endures an extensive quest to save her family from becoming
homeless. Her quick, permanent assumption of the care of her brothers makes it
easy to forget her own young age. A reminder of this is the school bus driver
asking her, “Staring back to school?” (Woodrell 47). Not too long before, Ree
was just a child, but now, the poverty and prevalence of methamphetamine in the
remote Rathlin Valley has forced her to endure a rapid maturity to be able to
care for her family.
The toll that this responsibility takes on Ree can be
seen in her realization that she’s in this on her own. When her mother fails to
respond to Ree’s pleas for help, her “raised hopes fell to modest hopes, slight
hopes, vague hopes, kneeling until any hope at all withered to none” (Woodrell
118). However, this moment of desperation doesn’t stop her brave quest to save
her family. In the end, Ree now fully understands her role, telling her
brothers that she’d “get lost without the weight of you two on my back”
(Woodrell 193). She can no longer leave to pursue her own ambitions, but she
has learned to accept her new reality. As a young matriarchal figure in the
seemingly male-dominated Ozarks, Ree Dolly represents the devastating effects of
the poverty, violence, and isolation of rural America.
Ree Dolly’s responsibilities and commitments to her family provide an interesting outlook for the story, but also a striking commentary on the resilience one must have to survive in an impoverished community and broken home. Ree dreams of going to the military and escaping the burdens that have been forced upon her. The journey she undertakes leads to violence, discovery, and eventually to the realization that staying with her brothers is ultimately the best choice. When reading about Ree’s developments and hardships I was reminded of how prevalent her experience is. One of the amazing things about all the books we have read this semester is that they all have real-world applications. All are stories that people can resonate with and see their own struggles in. Ree tells the story of many living a life thrown off course by drugs, mental illness, and poverty. Her experience as an older sibling almost mirrors that of Jojo in Sing, Unburied, Sing. Ree’s development throughout the novel speaks volumes about the hardships many in impoverished communities face, while also giving her an unspoken hopefulness and unflinching strength.
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