A Thousand Acres

A Thousand Acres

  • Submitted By: pochaco2005
  • Date Submitted: 11/12/2008 5:26 PM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 1578
  • Page: 7
  • Views: 741

A Thousand Acres Jane Smiley’s novel A Thousand Acres, begins with a festive pig roast thrown by Harold Clark to tribute his son, Jess returning back home. Annoyed by Harold, Larry Cook announces to everyone that he has decided to divide his one-thousand acres to his three daughters, Ginny, Rose, and Caroline, and their husbands, Ty and Pete. Yet, this act stuns the three daughters; they do not understand why their father would do this so fast. Consequently, Ginny and Rose go along with the plan. However, Caroline refuses and thus is cut off and receives nothing. Nevertheless, it is not long before Larry begins to behave erratically, as thou he is losing his mind. He buys furniture which he leaves outside to be ruined by the rain and gets into a car accident while he was intoxicate with alcohol. Even though Ginny and Rose have taken care of him ever since the death of their mother, Larry curses them and stumbles down the road in the middle of a tornado alert. Months later Ginny get news that her father, Larry, had died from a heart attack. But after the death of Larry, Rose makes public the knowledge that Larry had sexually abused both her and Ginny when they were teenagers, after the death of their mother. However, Ginny had suppressed these memories so much that she did not even remember when Rose told her. Eventually, Ginny returns to the farm, as she had learned that Rose was dying from cancer. Then, Rose not wanting to leave the farm to her two daughters, for fear that they would be stuck there as she and Ginny were, gives it to her sisters. As the novel comes to a close, Ginny retrieves the poisoned sausages that her sister never ate, because she had become a vegetarian by Jess’s influence on her and her daughters. The novel concludes with Rose’s children, now in their high teens living in St. Paul with their Aunt Ginny. Consequently, A Thousand Acres is a dark tale of corrupt society that functions in suppression. It is a story in which characters...

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