Setting is sometimes extremely crucial to plots and themes of stories and novels, and sometimes it is absolutely unimportant. Oftentimes the author does not, or quite mildly depicts the setting. However, this is not the case in Winter’s Bone. Daniel Woodrell puts illustrious emphasis on the setting of his novel. Being set in a poor, run-down, methamphetamine-laced community in the rural Ozarks of Missouri is an incredibly important aspect of Winter’s Bone. It affects the decisions and actions of every character in the book. While it may affect some characters in a drastically different way than others, it is still a great driving force in their decision-making. Daniel Woodrell leaves no stone unturned in describing the various scenes in the…show more content… While I had a picture of the Missouri Ozarks already in my mind, Woodrell gave in depth details of where Ree lived. Woodrell uses a unique prose in Winter’s Bone; it was unlike any book that I had read before. However, I felt that his writing style suited the story perfectly and was a key part of displaying the book’s setting. The author is quite blunt, yet also especially descriptive in describing the setting of the story. We see this with the first line of the book, “Ree Dolly stood at break of day on her cold front steps and smelled coming flurries and saw meat” (Woodrell 1). Right away, we are shown how important the setting of the story is going to be. We are also shown on the same page that this is a poor area, “Three halt haggard houses formed a kneeling rank on the far creekside and each had two or more skinned torsos dangling by rope from sagged limbs, venison left to the weather for two night and three days so the early blossoming of decay might round the flavor, sweeten that meat to the bone” (1). The houses are explained as haggard, meaning that they are worn out and beaten down. Also we get the image that the people of this community have to hunt for a lot of their food, most likely because of either lack of money, lack of access to a food market, or a combination of