Theme Of King Lear And A Thousand Acres

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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 that becomes a disaster. King Lear and A Thousand Acres utilize the elements of unexpected suffering, suffering that extends beyond the protagonist, and society/status to mold their stories into classic tragedies.
A Thousand Acres and King Lear …show more content…

Lear seems content with passing down his land, “shake all cares and business from our age,/ and put them on younger strengths” (I.I.41-42), as long as he still maintains his kingly respect. In each story the jovial atmosphere is interrupted when the father decides to divvy up his property. In A Thousand Acres this appears as a bump in the road, because life goes on with an increasing sense of tension. When Larry is present the family feels like “magnets with our northern poles pointing towards the center of the circle” (Smiley 101), which causes tension between Larry and the family. The main shift in Ginny, her relationship with her husband, occurs after the division of the farm.Ty always held the spot as the perfect man for her, but once Jess arrives she develops feelings for him, and cheats on her husband. Her moral compass becomes damaged, causing bad decisions in the future. However, in King Lear the division of his kingdom causes his existence to descend into chaos. Suddenly he is without property, a daughter, and a home. The daughters he is left with want nothing to do with him, they treat him with “sharp-toothed unkindness” (Shakespeare …show more content…

Ginny and Lear take the brunt of the hit, but their actions affect the people around them, causing their demise as well. Ginny’s decision to drive Larry away into the storm leads to the fall of Ty and Rose. Ty’s only dream is to run a hog operation, but his dreams slip away from him when Ginny creates a permanent discord in the family. With Larry no longer backing him, he loses confidence in himself, and focuses his energy on trying to repair the family. Slowly but surely, his dream fades away as he loses his wife, hog operation, and farm. His pain is evident as he recollects what has occurred since Ginny left, but when he brings up divorce, and Ginny appears unaffected, Ty reveals a “wounded surprise...that revealed something under his cool surface” (Smiley 341). Rose had the most tragic ending, because she spent her final years without her best friend, her sister. They were a team, always there for each other, even in the worst of times. But when Ginny left, everything changed, Rose was left to make crucial decisions that she was not qualified to make. This could only be detrimental to her fragile health, and the extra strain lead to her becoming weaker. If Ginny had been there to support Rose, Ty would not have lost the farm, and Rose would not have lost her health. Throughout King Lear the web of suffering expands, and all the strings lead back

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