A Thousand Acres

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1991

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Book 1

Book 2

Book 3

Book 4

Book 5

Book 6-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Larry’s New Furniture

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of infertility, pregnancy loss, and mental health conditions.

Following his transfer of the farm to Ginny and Rose, Larry begins buying new furniture, including a mismatched arrangement of kitchen cabinets and counters and a white couch. The family initially assumes that Larry is buying this new furniture to one-up Harold, who has just bought a fancy new tractor. All the new furniture is extravagant, expensive, and unnecessary. Larry’s new furniture is a motif that emphasizes the theme of The Impact and Harm of Gender Roles, primarily because everything he is buying is very domestic and subsequently unusual for him to care about. Additionally, the furniture pushes Ginny and Rose to act in ways that are outside their stereotypical and expected gender roles. They take the fact that Larry is buying new furniture to mean that he is acting erratically and start chastising him as if he is their child. By acting more dominant—and masculine—than Larry, they strip him of his power, leading him to go off into the storm and move back in with Caroline.

The motif also connects to Appearance Versus Reality, as Larry uses the new purchases to project an appearance of prosperity at a moment when he is feeling disempowered and uncertain. With no formal role on the farm anymore, Larry feels distanced from his previously hyper-masculine role and tries to fill this void with material goods. Larry purposefully keeps the cabinets outside where they can be destroyed by the rain, highlighting the fact that he never planned to use these objects in the first place. He bought them solely for the appearance of wealth that buying them would bring This furniture becomes a physical manifestation and an example of Larry’s growing mental health condition.

Ginny’s Poisoned Sausage

When Ginny learns of Rose’s affair with Jess, she decides to act vengefully for the first time and becomes determined to kill Rose. She decides to poison Rose and spends weeks researching and preparing, choosing to grind up water hemlock into pickled liver sausage. This is something only Rose eats, so she can guarantee that only Rose will be affected. This pickled jar of sausage is a motif that symbolizes Ginny’s descent into The Quest for Power and Revenge. Despite being wronged by many other characters in the novel, the only character Ginny seeks revenge against is Rose. The motif also connects the themes of The Impact and Harm of Gender Roles and Appearance Versus Reality. Ginny goes about the poisoning in a very feminine way, carefully creating homemade poisoned food that appears to be a gift on the surface. She also takes advantage of her reputation as a meek, domestically-inclined farmwife to conceal her murderous intent within a seemingly thoughtful gesture for her sister. This tactic also shows the difference between Ginny and Rose: Ginny will take the time to be careful and premeditate, while Rose will not. She tells Ginny she assumed she would have shot her if she wanted her to die. Ginny has more thoroughly internalized her assigned gender roles than Rose, to the point that they shape even the way she goes about taking revenge. Ginny’s decision to poison Rose is something she shares with her Shakespearean counterpart, as Goneril murders Regan by poisoning her in the play.

Nature

Much like King Lear, A Thousand Acres relies on the motif of nature to emphasize the theme of Appearance Versus Reality. Most notably, the storm plays a central role in the plot and marks Larry’s final descent into a serious mental health condition. However, the storm is marred with misinformation: Almost everyone in town assumes that Larry was sent out into the storm by his daughters when in reality he decided to go out into the storm himself. The terrible storm mimics the fact that no one in the Cook family will ever be the same after the destructive winds and rain end.

Both Ginny and Rose garden on the land, providing for their families. On the surface, this appears to be a benefit of living on a lush farm. However, it is implied that the farm is filled with chemicals that might be harming both Ginny's and Rose’s health. Some of the chemicals they use on their crops are linked to pregnancy loss, suggesting that Ginny’s inability to carry a child to term is the direct result of her living on the farm, and Rose’s cancer likewise may develop because of exposure to carcinogens the farmers use. Neither of the women ever explores this option or seeks answers, but it highlights the fact that the land is both figuratively and literally killing their spirits.

Lastly, Ginny often describes herself as a pig when she acts in what she considers to be selfish ways. When she is aroused in the middle of the night thinking about Jess and having sex with Ty, she describes herself as a “sow.” On the surface, she appears to be having a passionate moment with her husband; however, she is actually thinking about another man. She is so out of touch with her body that the only way she can speak about desire is to describe it in animal terms, which is the only language she knows after growing up on the farm.