King Lear Vs A Thousand Acres

It was once told to me, “A good writer borrows, and a great writer steals.” Where Shakespeare failed to connect with me as a reader, limiting my appreciation for King Lear, Jane Smiley made me a believer with her clear and natural manifestation of Lear, titled A Thousand Acres. In fact, my entire interpretation and view of King Lear changed considerably after watching A Thousand Acres. I read the book many years before reading King Lear, and as a result never linked the two until I watched the movie version for this essay. I found the book was far better than the film, not in the cynical, typical fashion of how a novel is supposed to tell the story better than a film does, but in a truly superb and distinct rite of passage all its own.
I believe Jane Smiley captures the tragic essence of Lear in A Thousand Acres, and truly does steal the crown in real Shakespearian fashion. Weaving in the creative trappings of her own imaginative “realm,” Smiley plops the Lear tale into 20th century America with ease, and her characters parallel Lear’s with intention, but she does it with modesty and in good taste.
The disconnect I experienced with Lear (perhaps because I didn’t grow up in a time or place of kings, or have the fortune of inheriting a kingdom), above all was because Lear failed to articulate how or why a simple gap in generations might compel one to want to usurp and despise the other. Lear never affirms why the two “bad” daughters Regan and Goneril have such disdain for their father, other than to suggest that there is an inherent evil in children that exposes itself when it comes time to inherit wealth and power. We do not quite know what makes Goneril and Regan tick other than the greed they display in Lear, and somewhat when Goneril speaks of her father playing favorites among the daughters, “The observation we have made of it hath not been little” (Act 1, Scene 1). Smiley however, accomplishes this task with her tale of the Cook family, and daughters Ginny (as Goneril), Rose (as Regan), and Caroline (as Cordelia), especially in revealing that the two “bad” daughter’s were molested by their father Larry Cook (as Lear). King Lear on the other hand is far less revealing and gives us little background for what leads to the families unraveling, or why the sister’s have so much friction to start with.
Although the strife of the Cook family is present under the surface, the boiling over does not begin until Larry decides to retire and tells of his plan to convert his thousand-acre farm into a corporate trust, leaving each of his daughters 1/3 of his “kingdom.” When Larry reveals this surprise to his daughters, it is Caroline’s indecision, her statement, “I’m not so sure” that leads Larry to believe she is “ungrateful,” and like Cordelia in King Lear, she is “cut out” of the inheritance, which is about as unreasonable as Lear banishing Cordelia for her supposed lack of “love” in Act 1.
How and why the events unfold within the Cook family the way they do is more realistic, sensible, and heartfelt than in Lear. The director does a great job in the movie version of tugging at what is beneath the surface, giving tidbits of information so that you begin to see and understand the grand scheme of how life truly is in the Cook family. There is no real conflict in the beginning of A Thousand Acres, as is immediately present in Lear, with Cordelia being the “good” daughter, and Goneril and Regan the “bad.” Ginny, Rose, and Caroline all appear to have a good relationship and love for one another, whereas in Lear, Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia clearly do not. For instance, after being banished in Act 1 Cordelia tells her sisters, “…I know you what you are, and like a sister am most loath to call your faults as they are named.” This is the only other hint we have as to what lay beneath the surface in Lear that is the root of the familial problems, although “faults,” whatever they are, seem mild in comparison to the molestation that occurred in the Cook family.
The lines are drawn between “good” and “evil” in both stories.
In Acres, it occurs when Ginny and Rose sign the papers transferring Caroline’s portion of the land between the two of them, angering her, as they split her part of the inheritance. It is less about the money for Caroline than it is the principle of the matter. Caroline is unaware of Larry’s actions and believes that he is a good man who has simply made an erroneous judgment when incorporating the farm and dividing the land between Rose and Ginny. Without knowing, Caroline is choosing the ‘evil over the good’ when she helps Larry sue Rose and Ginny to “take the farm back” and even becomes a “party to the suit.” When Lear banishes Cordelia, she believes that he is too trusting, and is overestimating her sisters’ devotion and love above her own “true” feelings for him. She “knows” her sisters are truly evil and wicked, but her father chooses them over her, once again the ‘evil over the good.’ In both stories, this sets the plot in motion for the tragic events that will unfold between families. Sister against sister, parent against child, and husband versus wife. The “untying of the knot” (so to speak) in both Acres and Lear begins with the rage and strife transpiring between the sisters, signifying what is to
come. The most significant difference between the two plots is that Rose and Ginny have reason to betray their father Larry, and “shut him out” in the storm, whereas Regan and Goneril do so out of greed and jealousy.
Jane Smiley offers the account of Rose and Ginny being molested and beaten (the ultimate betrayal) as good cause for why they hate Larry. Regan and Goneril have nothing but the wickedness of their hearts to account for the way they mistreat Lear. The vast difference between these plots is significant because in Lear, the audience sides with King Lear, Cordelia, Gloucester, Kent, etc., and in Acres, the audience sides with Ginny and Rose, despising the actions of Larry as he is the wicked one who deserves what he has coming. King Lear by contrast has done nothing to deserve the mistreatment he receives at the hands of Goneril and Regan, other than standing in the way of their own selfishness and greed. Ginny and Rose are similarly distinguished from Goneril and Regan. They are not greedy; they simply want their due for the life-long care they have given to Larry after the death of their mother and recompense for the way he mistreated them as children. When it comes to Caroline, she is simply suffering from a lack of knowledge. Her devotion to Larry is not unlike the virtuousness Cordelia has for Lear. However, Caroline has spent much of her time away from the family, living in Des Moines as a lawyer. The fact that she does not know the truth about everything
that has happened is best put by Ginny when she says, “You weren’t there. You don’t know what happened or what it was like.” Caroline and Cordelia are both viewed as blameless from the reader’s perspective, as they really do not deserve being “banished” or “cut” off by their fathers. By the end of King Lear, the reader is left with only a sad, tumultuous ending. Every single main character has met a premature death, and there is little to make sense or understand other than there were two terrible daughters whose anger and bitterness toward their father was the undoing of the entire family. There is a feeling of deep sorrow for the death of Cordelia, as she truly was the greatest victim in the entire plot. Not much else can be interpreted from Shakespeare’s decision to kill Cordelia, and it is confusing and causes anger and resentment. There is not hope for a happy ending, and you are left dealing with the fact that sometimes life is just not fair. The death of Lear is almost a relief, for his madness by the end is quite prominent, and at least he can be at peace in death.
The final chapter of A Thousand Acres is similarly sad and despairing. Larry dies of a heart attack, which is more than he deserved, and went mostly unnoticed by me. Rose dies from cancer, and leaves the entire farm to Ginny and Caroline under the express condition that it must be sold so that, “it all ends with our generation.” Caroline never learns the truth about Larry, before or after his death, and likely goes on believing the falsehoods about his life, and loves him the way she has always loved him. Ginny and Caroline do sell the farm to a large conglomerate, which razes the old houses, insuring the finality of that thousand acres. While I am sure they netted a hefty profit from the sale, I found no sense of pleasure in it. Ginny takes Rose’s daughters and moves away to a place where they can begin starting over, “finding hope in the newness of the future” according to aunt Ginny.
Once I watched A Thousand Acres, I was able to reexamine King Lear with a much greater understanding and knowledge than before. I realized that if Shakespeare had filled in all the gaps and expanded upon the details of his story, the entire play would have been different. The fact is, Jane Smiley is a twentieth century writer, and she was able to take her story to another level by exploring different concepts than Shakespeare had to contend with in his day. By doing so, she has shown how certain details can change the entire tone and attitude given to a piece of literature. Hopefully, other readers can take from this what I did, that is to develop a deeper understanding of life in general, without being so quick to judge or needing to connect with and know all the facts in order to understand the true meaning and nature of a story.