A Thousand Acres
Plot
Characters
Motifs
Symbols/Imagery
Links to King Lear
Larry Cook: the father of Ginny, Rose, and Caroline. Larry's relationships with his daughters, method of running the farm, and competitiveness with his neighboring farmers are all tragic aspects of his life that bring about his downfall in the end.
Rose: the wife of Pete. Larry's abuse has turned her hard and angry.
Ginny: the eldest sister and the wife of Ty. She is stuck in peace-making inertia, perpetually afraid, uncertain and empty due to her fathers' abuse
Caroline: Youngest daughter of Larry. Lives in the city and is a Lawyer. She can love Larry, because she has never had to love him the way her sisters did. Caroline is in blissful ignorance over the fate she has been rescued from, and to the end accuses her sisters of an unnatural lack of affection towards their father.
Ty Smith: the husband of Ginny. While he is married to her, he never seems concerned about her interests. He may not he physically harmful like Larry and Pete but is neglectful.
Jess Clark: Harold's son who has gone for thirteen years. When he returns you can feel the attraction that the women give to him by how they describe him as good looking.
Pete Lewis: Pete is Rose's husband. He too also isn't very conscious of his wife's feelings but nothing as bad as Ty, but has physically abused Rose
The “jar of sausages” murder plot seems a bit far-fetched and out-of-character even for the jealous Ginny, though it does echo the plot of King Lear.
The Jar of Sausages
Ginny learns that Rose has been sleeping with Jess Clark, with whom Ginny herself has been having an affair. Furious, Ginny researches poisons and cooks Rose some sausages poisoned with hemlock, which she places in a jar. The jar comes to symbolize Ginny’s inner hatred, jealousy, and need for revenge. Her desire to be revenged on her abusive father has corrupted Ginny more than it’s punished Larry, leading the two sisters to become broken down by hatred and bitterness, and to turn on each other.
Monopoly
After Rose and Ginny inherit Larry’s property, they strike up a family tradition in which they play a nightly game of Monopoly with their husbands, as well as with Jess Clark. The game is enjoyed by all, but it also symbolizes the characters’ intense desire for power and property (and allows them to access these desires behind the façade of a game). This is an early sign that the Cook family will be torn apart by greed.
Revenge
Sexual Abuse
Land/Inheritance
Good vs Evil
Smiley retells Lear in such a way that the characters in Lear who seemed more evil (such as Edmund, Goneril, and Regan) are now presented in a more balanced light (Ginny, Jess Clark, Rose). Ginny initially seems to be a decent, moral person, and believes herself to be a decent person even after her actions grow increasingly greedy and cruel, making it more difficult for readers to condemn or condone these actions. Even a character like Larry, who’s guilty of a truly evil crime, may himself be the victim of other people’s evil deeds later in life. In general, A Thousand Acres uses its Lear allusions to show that labels like “good” and “evil” often can’t be so firmly applied in the real world.
Throughout the second half of the novel, Ginny and Rose are motivated by the desire to get revenge on their father for abusing them when they were teenagers. Ginny also tries to get revenge on Rose for having an affair with Jess.
An example of how misogyny continues to shape the female characters’ lives is sexual abuse. Halfway through the novel, we learn that Larry raped Rose and Ginny. Even though Larry’s sexual abuse ended a long time ago, Ginny and Rose are still traumatized by their pasts.
As the story begins, Larry Cook signs the papers that turn over his farmland to his two eldest daughters, Ginny and Rose. But in reality, the characters’ most importance inheritance is abstract: the memories and influences passed on from Larry to the girls, and the way such memories and influences are often closely connected to concrete inheritances like land and money.
Larry is unable to recognize Caroline// Lear is unable to recognize Cordelia
Regan and Goneril's seduction by Edmund// Rose and Ginny's seduction by Jess
Larry's dismissal of Caroline is a parallel to Lear exiling Cordelia
Perhaps no similarity is as striking as that of the fathers . They share three characteristics which bind them and make their parallels unmistakable. The first is that they are both owners of a large estate. King Lear's property consists of England and Larry Cook's property is that of a thousand acres of land in Iowa. This land brings the primary conflicts of the two works into focus. Before their downward spiral, both men are revered and respected.
The story begins at a pig roasting party hosted by neighbor Harold Clark. One of his sons, Jess, has returned after dodging the draft for 13 years. At the party, Harold begins bragging about a new tractor he bought. The bragging infuriates a slightly drunk Larry Cook. He brags he is going to give his one-thousand acre farm to his three daughters and let them run the family business. The younger daughter, Caroline, is upset by the transaction, so Larry cuts her out of the deal.
Larry grows extremely irritable; while he was always an angry man, his temper is even more erratic. He is more distant with his daughters and sons-in-law, and he questions their every choice regarding the farm. He buys expensive furniture and leaves it out in the rain. He also wrecks his pickup truck. Ginny and Rose decide they have to be firmer with their father and speak up. Larry is furious with them, though. One night during a storm, he curses both of them and then wanders out into the storm alone.
Rose is furious at Larry's actions, and she reveals both she and Ginny had been raped by their father when they were teenagers. Ginny promptly dismisses this by saying she does not remember this, but Rose remains furious. The family decides to meet at the Fourth of July dinner at the church to keep up appearances. The daughters are worried the town is beginning to gossip about their family problems.
At the dinner, Larry chats with the townspeople and tells them children will only put their parents in a nursing home. His behavior worries Ginny and Rose, but they decide to pretend like nothing is wrong. The family all sit together at the dinner table in the center of the room, and then Harold, the neighbor, stands up and starts cursing both Ginny and Rose. He says they are trying to trick their father out of his hard-earned land, and then he accuses Jess of trying to steal his own farm to start an organic food business.
The family lawyer approaches Ginny and informs her Larry, with the help of Caroline, is suing both her and Rose for the farm. Their lawyer tells them to make the farm a model of perfection so they cannot lose the farm due to “mismanagement or abuse,” which is the reason Larry is suing them. Because the farm was profiting and had paid its debt off two days early, Ginny and Rose win the suit. Because of the tension, Ginny leaves her husband and moves to Minnesota.
Ginny learns months later her father had died five days after the trial. Ginny had also signed over all her land to her husband and Rose. Almost a year later, she gets a call from Rose saying her cancer had returned, and she needed someone to take care of her two children. After Rose dies, Ginny and Caroline meet each other at their family homestead to divide the assets. They end up arguing, and Caroline storms out. Ginny decides to auction all the belongings her family left.
Harold's Red Tractor
Harold’s new red tractor pushes Larry to give his children his land.