Woodrell's Life And Uncle Teardrop: A Comparison

Facing the troubles of growing up in the Ozarks’s, Ree Dolly a sixteen year old girl has been left with the troubles of caring for her family because of the disappearance of her father, Jessup. While on the search to find her father Ree has to go to extreme extents to see if anyone has seen him, the person who tries to help her the most is her Uncle Teardrop. Along with Ree, Daniel Woodrell grew up in a bad Ozarks area surrounded by poor influences that affect his life. Authors like Woodrell relate their life story to the main character in their novels, Ree is an example of that because she grows up surrounded by poverty, drugs and alcohol addictions, and similar families. In both Woodrell’s life and Ree’s fictional life, they grow up in a community and household suffering from poverty. Years later Woodrell and his wife visited the town of the Ozark’s where he had been raised, which did not change much and still
It is known that, “the poverty rate in surrounding Howell County is 50 percent higher than in the rest of Missouri,” which explains that residents in the Ozarks did not have many high paying jobs leading to a high poverty rate (Westhoff). Ree also experienced a life filled with poverty, for example when Sonya, Blond Milton’s wife, visited Ree and the family she brought them a box filled with food. As Ree accepted the meat and canned goods all she could think to herself is, “four days free from hunger or worrying about hunger,” this goes to show that even a small amount of food can satisfy her uncertainty of not being able to feed her family (Woodrell,18). Jessup’s bad decisions sent him to jail and in order to make bail and attend trial he put up his house and belongings up as a collateral. To elaborate, the sheriff came to the door and explained that to