Winter's bone

Jacob Sanchez
Professor Laura Cline
English 102
March 22, 2012

Winter’s Bone: of Meth and Life

The book Winter’s Bone, by Daniel Woodrell, has many recurring themes, from the difficulty of rural life, to the transience of childhood. However, one recurring theme is the rampant use and production of methamphetamines in the small towns of the rural Ozarks. In this book, many, if not the majority, of the characters are using, cooking, distributing, or any combination of the triumvirate of the methamphetamine life cycle. As can be seen in the text, it is a cultural cycle that is very difficult to break out of, and is highly destructive both to families and to individuals.
Ree, the protagonist of the text, is repeatedly offered, and occasionally partakes of, various forms of illicit intoxicants, from so called “magic mushrooms” (Woodrell, 55) to prescription pills (Woodrell, 145), but never touches crank. It’s never stated outright, but you get the impression that she knows that it will lead her to places she doesn’t want to go. There is significant other picturization in the text of the damage that meth does to the individual, and the paranoia that is inherent in the long term use of the drug. According to Methland, by Nick Reding, the “ultimate effects are psychopathology such as intolerable depression, profound sleep and memory loss, debilitating anxiety, severe hallucinations, and acute, schizophrenic bouts of paranoia.