A Thousand Acres

“I remember what I thought. I thought, okay. Take it. He is holding it out to you, and all you have to do is take it.”

Many people in town accuse Ginny, Ty, Rose, and Pete of stealing the farm from Larry; however, he was the one who came up with the idea. Ginny’s initial reaction to Larry’s offer shows how she always does what he wants, including taking the farm.

“I saw that maybe Caroline had mistaken what we were talking about, and spoken as a lawyer when she should have spoken as a daughter. On the other hand, perhaps she hadn’t mistaken anything at all, and had simply spoken as a woman rather than as a daughter. That was something, I realized in a flash, that Rose and I were pretty careful never to do.”

Rose and Ginny never got to escape the farm, primarily because they were stuck there raising Caroline following their mother’s death. As a result, the three sisters have radically different reactions to The Impact and Harm of Gender Roles. Caroline is never afraid to be more forceful in her delivery, something that Ginny and Rose cannot do because of their caretaking roles.

“Deserving was an interesting concept, applied to my father. His own motto was, what you get is what you deserve.”

Many people tell Ginny she will be rewarded for taking care of Larry and being a good daughter. Caroline says she deserves “to be mollified” while their father does not; however, later in the novel she flips her alliances. As a result, this quote foreshadows the treatment Larry receives after the storm. He is found to be a sympathetic character following the storm, even though he may not deserve that sympathy.

“The accompanying pictures were of our farm being sprayed for European corn borers, and my father was quoted as saying, ‘There isn’t any room for the old methods any more. Farmers who embrace the new methods will prosper, but those that don’t are already stumbling around.’”

This quote is ironic given that Larry’s decision to move into the future—to pass the farm down to younger generations—ruins his family and eventually loses them the farm. Additionally, it foreshadows the fact that he will stumble around—metaphorically and literally—once he no longer can farm and have the power that comes with it.

“Not only wasn’t he going to help me decide, my decision was a test. I could push past him, give him toast and cereal and bacon, a breakfast without a center of gravity, or I could run home and get the eggs. My choice would show him something about me, either that I was selfish and inconsiderate (no eggs) or that I was incompetent (a flurry of activity where there should be organized procedure). I did it. I smiled foolishly, said I would be right back, and ran out the door and back down the road. The whole way I was conscious of my body—graceless and hurrying, unfit, panting, ridiculous in its very femininity.”

Ginny often takes on a caretaker role for Larry, making sure he is fed and content. However, despite forcing her into this strict maternal role, Larry finds ways to exert his power over her. She is always very aware of her body during these interactions, which could foreshadow her future realization that Larry sexually abused her when she was a teenager.

“But mostly, farm women are proud of the fact that they can keep the house looking as though the farm stays outside, that the curtains are white and sparkling and starched, that the carpet is clean and the windowsills dusted and the furniture in good shape, or at least neatly slipcovered (by the wife).”

This quote highlights the theme of Appearance Versus Reality, highlighting the fact that the women in the novel go to great lengths to hide and ignore the ugliness of farm life. It also highlights The Impact and Harm of Gender Roles, emphasizing the pressure women are under to maintain a spotless home to prove their competence as a wife.

“A land deal was a land deal, and few were neighborly. But I now wonder if there was an element of shame to Daddy’s refusal to ever to speak of it. I wondered if it had really landed in his lap, or if there were moments of planning, of manipulation and using a man’s incompetence and poverty against him that soured the whole transaction. On the other hand, one of my father’s favorite remarks about things in general was ‘Less said about that, the better.”

Ginny contemplates one of Larry’s land deals and wonders for the first time if he schemed to make the deal happen. If so, it would confirm that Larry can perform ignorance to conceal his malice, which is what Rose believes about him.

“I told myself that all of this was okay with me, that a life could be made of this proximity, that maybe that was the only possible life to make, since the other paths, which my imagination had instantaneously traveled, were all equally impossible.”

Ginny sees no way to escape the farm, but her relationship with Jess gives her a glimpse of freedom. However, she knows they cannot be together, so she settles for seeing him briefly and feeling alive through his interactions.

“You barren whore! I know all about you, you slut. You’ve been creeping here and there all your life, making up to this one and that one. But you’re not really a woman, are you? I don’t know what you are, just a bitch, is all, just a dried-up whore bitch.”

Larry primarily attacks Ginny during his outburst before the storm. He repeatedly highlights her gender, emphasizing the one aspect he still has power and control over her. This quote demonstrates the way that women are punished with gendered insults and violence even when they try to fulfill their gender roles.

“He said you whores had sent him out into the storm and that he wished he’d had sons.”

Jess relays Larry’s message regarding the storm to Ginny. This is the only time Larry openly admits that he wishes he had had male children instead of female, which emphasizes that he thinks that Ginny and Rose’s gender is what is causing their fight.

“He said, ‘Everybody in this town is friends, Ginny. Even all the feuding parties have been feuding for so long that they’re practically friends. These times we’re in are so unsettled that it makes me nervous. Interest rates flying everywhere. All the old rules disappearing. It’s like Depression times. People can make a lot of new enemies in times like these.’”

Marv Carson plays the role of “The Fool” throughout the novel, speaking forbidden truths that often foreshadow the future. This particular dialogue foreshadows the upcoming 1980s Farm Crisis.

“From our punishments, we were expected to learn, I suppose, to control ourselves. A careless act was as reprehensible as an act of intentional meanness or disobedience.”

Larry emphasizes being “careful” to his children. However, being “careful” to Larry means being compliant and following his rules. As a result, Ginny spends most of her life being afraid of her father and of her own desires, which has tragic consequences for her.

“When Jess told me, I cried, too. Then the next day I helped Pete load hogs for the sale barn. I thought about Daddy saying, that’s life. That’s farming. So, I say to Harold, gee, Harold, you should have checked the water tank. That’s farming. They made rules for us to live by. They’ve got to live by them, too.”

As the novel progresses, Rose becomes increasingly callous regarding any harm that comes to Larry or Harold. She is tired of being held to higher standards and expectations than they are, and she wants them to be finally held accountable for their actions, regardless of how it makes her look.

“She encompassed us both in her gaze, and said, ‘You both seem to think that there’s some game going on here, that we can choose to play or not, that we can follow our feelings here and there and just leave when we don’t like it any more. Maybe you can. But this is life and death for me. If I don’t find some way to get out from under what Daddy’s done to me before I die-’ She stopped. Her face was white and set. She said, ‘I can’t accept that this is my life, all I get. I can’t do it. I thought it would go on longer, long enough to get it right. I thought that I would fucking outlive him, and he could have that, half my life his, half my own. But now I bet he’s going to outlive me. It’s like he’s going to smother me, just cover me over as if I were always his, never my own—’ Her voice strangled to a halt. Jess and I didn’t look at each other.”

Following Harold’s accident, Rose becomes determined to seek revenge and find justice for what Larry did to her as a teenager and as an adult. In the process, she tries to get Ginny and Jess to join her in her quest. This quote exemplifies The Quest for Power and Revenge: Rose is motivated to get revenge partly by her desire to assert power over her own life which she has been denied by her father.

“With the future visible, growing, getting ready to present itself (assumed to be a boy until the last possible minute), it would have been unwise to question the past, a tempting of fate. There would have been no new buildings, because we would have taken a conservative fiscal line. We would have sought instead to present a different picture: five generations on the same land. In honor of my son, wouldn’t I warm enthusiastically to such a picture? All the other mothers of sons in Zebulon County did.”

As Ty begins adding more buildings to the farm, Ginny cannot help but imagine what life would have been like if she had been able to carry a baby to term. This seems to imply that Ginny feels that her inability to have a child is what ultimately leads to her and Ty’s downfall.

“One thing Daddy took from me when he came to me in my room at night was the memory of my body.”

Ginny is very disconnected from her body and is often confused by her desires and wants. As a result, her sense of self is fragmented while she lives on the farm, and it is only when she escapes its clutches that she finally understands who she is.

“I was so remarkably comfortable with the discipline of making a good appearance!”

This quote epitomizes the theme of Appearance Versus Reality. As the family prepares for the hearing, Ginny takes comfort in keeping up appearances and performing, relying on the safety of her traditional gender role.

“But he did fuck us and he did beat us. He beat us more than he fucked us. He beat us routinely. And the thing is, he’s respected. Others of them like him and look up to him. He fits right in. However many of them have fucked their daughters or their stepdaughters or their nieces or not, the fact is that they all accept beating as a way of life. We have two choices when we think about that. Either they don’t know the real him and we do, or else they do know the real him and the fact that he beat us and fucked us doesn’t matter. Either they themselves are evil, or they’re stupid. That’s the thing that kills me. This person who beats and fucks his own daughters can go out into the community and get respect and power, and take it for granted that he deserves it.”

Rose implies that Larry’s behavior is not isolated to just him; rather, it is indicative of the greater community’s allowance of bad behavior as long as it can be kept secret or appears to be okay. The problem of Appearance Versus Reality is not limited to the Cook family—it is a product of the culture of their community. The quote also suggests that part of The Impact and Harm of Gender Roles is the way that the abuse of women is considered unimportant, and perhaps even a sign of a man’s masculinity.

“All my life I had identified with Rose. I’d looked to her, waited a split second to divine her reaction to something, then made up my own mind. My deepest-held habit was assuming that differences between Rose and me were just on the surface, that beneath, beyond all that, we were more than twinlike, that somehow we were each other’s real selves, together forever on this thousand acres.”

While Rose often acts selfishly throughout the novel, Ginny almost always forgives her. However, she is unable to forgive her sister for sleeping with Jess, highlighting that Jess was extremely important to Ginny and her sense of self and freedom.

“Certainly, I thought, this is what they meant by ‘premeditated’—this deliberate savoring of each step, the assembly of each element, the contemplation of how death would be created, how a path of intentional circumstances paralleling and mimicking accidental circumstances would be set out upon. One thing, I have to say, that I especially relished was the secrecy of it. In that way, I saw, I had been practicing for just such an event as this all my life.”

Ginny decides to get revenge for Rose’s affair with Jess by poisoning her with homemade sausage. Ginny enjoys the premeditation and revenge process, channeling all of her anger toward her sister instead of Larry. This passage also adds a new wrinkle to Appearance Versus Reality, as Ginny’s revenge involves creating a sausage that appears benign but is poisonous.

“The harvest drama commenced then, with the usual crises and heroics. Men against nature, men against machine, men against the swirling, impersonal forces of the market. Victories—finishing the last of a field just before rain—and defeats—the price of corn dropping thirty cents a bushel in a single day; the strange transforming mix of power and exhaustion.”

While the novel is filled with primarily family drama, the farm provides its own drama, particularly through the harvest. Additionally, typically only men experience this drama, leaving the women to handle the domestic—and more dangerous—drama.

“After we started dating, five years later, he swore he could not remember this incident, and I’m sure he didn’t, but it was burned into my memory as a reminder of the shame you courted if ever you made the mistake of thinking too well of yourself.”

Many of the characters experience a fall from grace in the novel. Ty feels immense shame after having to sell the farm, realizing just how far he has fallen.

“I was unable to find a bed at Rose’s house, that I could lie in. I ended up on the white brocade couch at three in the morning, and then rain outside entered my dreams, making it swell and buckle, causing me to fight with someone whose identity in the dream wasn’t clear.”

This quote brings back one of the novel’s main motifs—Larry’s furniture—to highlight how the farm strips Ginny of her power and agency. She does not know who is attacking her in her dream, highlighting that it is the farm itself that is her enemy, not one particular person.