Silence And Secrets In The Winter's Bone By Daniel Woodrell

Within the highlands and plateaus of the Missouri Ozarks, a harsh winter falls each year while the Dollys, a family born on crime that blankets the region, establish feuds, connections, secrets, and trade for their production of hard drugs. Daniel Woodrell's The Winter’s Bone shows how this silence and these secrets can be used to protect or harm others with either action or the lack of it

Silence and secrets generally are used for one's own desire, but here they have been used with the desire to protect someone. With Teardrop preventing Ree from getting any footholds on the truth about her missing father, Teardrop does this to protect Ree from their own family, because he knows the earnestness behind those insane and criminal threats. So Teardrop attempts to derail her with just the comment, "Don’t go runnin’ after Jessup" (Woodrell 23). But as Ree presses on, Teardrop tells her it was Jessup's own decision to run. But as she made a comment to him on being Jessup’s only brother, he broke down with a confession of knowing something. But that this isn't their place to be hunting for information, "You think I forgot that?...Jessup’n me run

As Ree was beaten for actions unfitting her punishment, the entire crowd watched, and few could even tell this was drastic. Yet no action was taken, and she was again met with silence, "The crowd chalked at funny things she couldn't hear and there was a great ugly roaring in her ears. Megan moved on the fringe of the crowd, and twiced it seemed like she might’ve nodded Ree’s way" (Woodrell 134). Megan seemed to be her only ally, yet the extent of her strength was to recognize that she was still alive and human. So through the use of secrets and silence, ways to protect and harm others with either action or the lack of it have all been seen by the people of Winter’s