A Thousand Acres is a novel by Jane Smiley telling a modern version of Shakespeare's King Lear, set on a thousand-acre farm in Iowa. In his old age, Larry Cook decides to hand over control of the family farm to his three daughters, Rose, Caroline and Ginny. However, when one daughter objects, she is cut out of the inheritance and a feud ensues that brings out suppressed truths, among them, Larry's sexual abuse of two of the daughters. The novel deals with themes of family, insanity and gender roles.
A Thousand Acres Essay The novel A Thousand Acres gives meaning to any land the characters own The characters value their land because it is a part of them and their everyday life revolving around their acres of land Every one has a different experience and feeling towards it making them mostly personal For example Ginnys grandparents receiving their land helped reach everyone related to them a different experience including their own The history of how they expanded little by little makes a di
Jane Smiley 1992 Pulitzer Prize winning author uses the characters changing personalities and attitudes in A Thousand Acres to demonstrate the major effect the break up of a family can have on people Many of the characters change through the novel with becoming more introverted and others becoming more outspoken One of the main people to change in the novel is Ginny Ginny is the narrator and also the protagonist of the novel However she is still has one major factor that remains throughout the