A Fine Balance, written by Rohinton Mistry’s, illustrates the path to wisdom and humility before a calamitous end. The novel, A Thousand Acres, by Jane Smiley parallels a lot of similar themes and ideas depicted in A Fine Balance. As the story develops, a connection forms between the improbable household in both books and they generate an unbelievably uneven dysfunctional family, to either protect or torment one another through the experiences they encounter. Both novels develop the themes of, concern
King Lear by William Shakespeare and A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley are both fantastic tragedies that follow a similar story arc. Although King Lear was written in 1606, and A Thousand Acres was written in 1999, they contain the same essential elements of a tragedy. Jane Smiley modeled her novel after King Lear, focusing less on Lear’s story, and more on the daughters’ stories. Both story-lines are extremely similar: a father chooses to divide his land amongst his daughters, and everything following
While it may appear that Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres is nothing but a modernized interpretation of Shakespeare's King Lear, one can see that below the surface these two tales are anything but alike. Through Smiley's characters Larry, Caroline, Ginny and Rose, it is easy to conclude that they contrast their "parallels," Lear, Cordelia, Goneril and Rose, greatly from Shakespeare's play. Among the multiple themes that make this conclusion possible, the most prominent are the contrasting themes of
Incest in A Thousand Acres Incest in A Thousand Acres invades all the other items: it is there, and is crucial for everything that happens, but it is hidden beneath the surface of appearances. Tim Keppel has pointed out not only that "Smiley's major departure [...] is her decision to tell the story from the viewpoint of Ginny and explore the inner lives of the so-called 'evil' sisters" (Keppel, p.105), but that "Smiley makes her most dramatic re-vision of Shakespeare" (Keppel, p.109) in the storm
A Thousand Acres and King Lear: A New Twist When Jane Smiley wrote A Thousand Acres, she consciously made the story parallel to Shakespeare's King Lear for several reasons. The novel's characters and basic storyline are almost direct parallels to King Lear, but Smiley's dissatisfaction with the traditional interpretation of King Lear is showcased in her modern day version (Berne 236). The story of the Cook family is almost a carbon copy of the saga of Lear's family. The ruler, or father, possesses
Body and Nature as Metaphor in A Thousand Acres Most issues on a farm return to the issue of keeping up appearances. (Smiley p.199) [T]he female body is a reservoir, a virgin patch of still, pooled water where the fetus comes to term. (Paglia p.27) [A] fetus is a benign tumor, a vampire who steals in order to live. (Paglia p.11) The epigraph to this novel is from "The Ancient People and the Newly Come": The body repeats the landscape. They are the source of each other and create each other
Body and Visibility in A Thousand Acres The west insists on the discrete identity of objects. To name is to know; to know is to control. (Paglia, p.5) [Woman's beauty] gives the eye the comforting illusion of intellectual control over nature. (Paglia, p.17) If the male gaze is a tool to conceptualize reality, then -like an axe- it can also be used as a weapon. The Paglia quotes above refer not only to matters of epistemology or even ontology ("This is what we see; therefore, this is what exists")
King Lear by William Shakespeare, and A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley are both fantastic tragedies that follow a similar story arc. Although King Lear was written in 1606, and A Thousand Acres was written in 1999, they contain the same essential elements of a tragedy. Jane Smiley modeled her novel after King Lear, focusing less on Lear’s story, and more on the daughters’ stories. The story-line of both is extremely similar: a father chooses to divide his land amongst his daughters, and everything
is through nature that we are able to exist in the first place, and it is through nature that we can continue to live. In “King Lear” by William Shakespeare and “A Thousand Acres” by Jane Smiley, the authors both illustrate just how important nature really is in the world through actions of Goneril and Ginny. Even though “A Thousand Acres” is a modern retelling of the famous “King Lear,” both authors bring out the elements of nature, which in turn echoes the themes of both the play and the novel.
The Corrupt Patriarchal Society of A Thousand Acres Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres tells a dark tale of a corrupt patriarchal society which operates through concealment. It is a story in which the characters attempt to manipulate one another through the secrets they possess and the subsequent revelation of those secrets. In her novel, Smiley gives us a very simple moral regarding this patriarchal society: women who remain financially and emotionally dependent on men decay; those able to break
Covert Control in A Thousand Acres Though there are instances of overt control and destruction performed by the patriarchy upon both women and nature, the most pervasive forms the Apollonian controlling impulse takes, are covert. What Ginny says about Larry, also goes for the system of which he is the ultimate signifier: "I feel like there's treacherous undercurrents all the time. I think I'm standing on solid ground, but then I discover that there's something moving underneath it, shifting from
Rose’s Breast Cancer in A Thousand Acres Pete, representing erratic male rage in the novel, has a history of abusing Rose. This climaxes when he breaks her arm. It follows a terrible logic that since male rage hurts her body, so does her own, the impetus of which is provided by the patriarchal system. Ginny's description of Pete fits Rose equally well, with an anger that "would be quiet, but corrosive, erupting at odd times" (31). Rose's breast cancer symbolizes the way she is literally consumed
Ginny’s as a Barren Whore in A Thousand Acres Into her womb convey sterility, Dry up in her the organs of increase, And from her derogate body never spring A babe to honor her. (King Lear, I.iv. 285-288) Within the logic of the novel, it is soon established that Ginny understands and feels external reality through her body, and the most important instance of this is her bodily urge to have children. The sight of Rose's daughters, contrasted with her own miscarriages, Ginny says, "affected me
Jane Smiley’s novel, A Thousand Acres, is a bold, modern day response paralleling William Shakespeare’s play, King Lear through both plot and characterization choices. King Lear is based on a King’s difficult decision of dividing his precious kingdom between his daughters, whose names are Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia. Likewise, A Thousand Acres centres around Larry Cook regretfully signing his land to his daughters Ginny, Rose, and Caroline. Both fathers make the mistake of leaving their youngest
Women Finding Their Voices in A Thousand Acres "Women, just like nature or the land, have been seen as something to be used,' says Smiley.'Feminists insist that women have intrinsic value, just as environmentalists believe that nature has its own worth, independent of its use to man'" (Duffy 92). Larry Cook, the senile, old power holder and father in Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres, is a prime example of a man who believes that women and land are nothing more than objects that exist on this earth
Signifying System in A Thousand Acres The fascinating aspect of theories about the bodies, is that our bodies lie somewhere in the grey area between the physical and the intellectual realm (in itself testifying to the falsity of such dichotomies). On the one hand, they are biological; genetically programmed flesh. On the other, they are continuous sites of signification; embodying (no pun intended) the essentially textual quality of a human subject's identity. A Thousand Acres foregrounds issues
Father/Daughter Relationships in King Lear and A Thousand Acres The bond between a father and a daughter stands as one of the strongest emotional bonds present within many families. From the moment their little girls emerge from the womb to the moment their young women marry, the father reigns as the head of the household, the controller, and the protector. Though this rings true for many families, sometimes Daddy's little girls make all the rules. They possess the ability to acquire what they
Comparing Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres and William Shakespeare's King Lear Jane Smiley's novel A Thousand Acres is a modern version of William Shakespeare's King Lear. The tragic ideas brought out by King Lear are revisited in A Thousand Acres both containing universal themes in which societies from past to present can identify with. Tragedy is a form of drama that depicts the suffering of a heroic individual who is often overcome by the very obstacles he is struggling to remove. The novel
An Analysis of Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres tells a dark tale of a corrupt patriarchal society which operates through concealment. It is a story in which the characters attempt to manipulate one another through the secrets they possess and the subsequent revelation of those secrets. In her novel, Smiley gives us a very simple moral regarding this patriarchal society: women who remain financially and emotionally dependent on men decay;
Jane Smiley’s novel, A Thousand Acres, is a contemporary interpretation of William Shakespeare’s classical tragedy King Lear. Comparisons are clearly visible in the very beginning of A Thousand Acres when Smiley begins with a vivid description of the landscape. Even the characters are similar and having read King Lear, I already had an impression of them before reading A Thousand Acres. But they are not completely similar as there are some differences due to the perspectives through which the stories