Throughout Winter’s Bone, the characters, particularly Ree, are bogged down by the intensity of lack dominating their lives. This lack is presented in the dialogue between characters, the actions of the characters individually, as well as through the harsh wintry setting. Ree and her siblings lack a father and caretakers, their mother lacks a husband, they all lack sufficient food, and throughout the novel, Ree’s journey and encounters with her relatives suggest that they also lack the protection of family that was once thought to be provided because of having the Dolly name. One of the major ways in which this lack can be seen is in Ree’s mostly unspoken and hushed longing for some type of paradise or other world beyond the one that she knows. One of her means of escaping from reality for a bit is through listening to The Sounds of Tranquil Shores, The Sounds of Tranquil Streams, The Sounds of Tropical Dawn, and Alpine Dusk in which her “jittering soul” could finally experience “a moment’s rest” (10). These sounds offer her the chance to pretend she is in another place, a world that she wants to be in. In a conversation with one of her younger brothers, her depiction of heaven evokes similar imagery to what the sounds would evoke, describing heaven as “Sandy. Lots of fun birds. Always sunny but never way hot” (188).
Ree’s lack is felt the strongest throughout the novel as she not only longs for better things for herself throughout the novel but also often captures the reader’s attention by making remarks about the lack and longing of others. From worrying that her little brothers will become “wailing little cyclones of want and need” who will “[eat] all there was while crying for all there could be” (8) to her best friend’s little baby who she already sees as possessing “wants he’d been born bawling for but might never be able to name or get for himself” (32), it seems that Ree has a pretty negative outlook on the future and on the ability for life to properly satisfy any individual’s needs, let alone one’s wants.
Though the majority of the book is dominated by this overwhelmingly bleak and scarce feeling, the concluding lines suggest somewhat of a more positive and hopeful outlook for Ree and her family moving forward. In the end, though she decides she will not join the army like she had hoped, she does receive a lot of cash which can, at least temporary, alleviate some of her and her family’s struggles and unfulfilled needs. Additionally, the book ends with Ree telling her brothers that they will buy some “wheels” with the money (193), implying that they will get a car, which suggests a sort of optimism and means of escaping to something better, perhaps to a life that isn’t so worn down by lack and longing.
The feel of this novel does reflect an overwhelming feeling of bleakness that does translate into a feeling that the characters are lacking something better. It seems that one of the elements Ree and her family are lacking throughout this novel is closure. While Ree initially assumes Jessup is still alive, by the time Satterfield tells her to bring him proof of his death, Ree has to accept that her father is dead to save her family (127). Not only does this prevent her from getting closure with her father over what he did to the family, but it forces her move on because she must keep moving to find the proof she needs. The situation at hand was created by an environment that discourages her from seeking closure because there are other things at stake. By the time she is faced with Blond Milton at her beating, she tells them that she “can’t forever carry both . . . them boys’n Mom . . . not . . . without that house to help” (134). She wants to change the environment around her, but she cannot do that while focusing on what she really wants. She must accept that she will always lack that closure because everything else is falling apart. Even her brothers, the ones she hoped would stay innocent longer, assume that Jessup is dead (188). Even at this age, they seem to move past closure in pursuit of the more important obstacles this environment drudges up.
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