The parallels between Jane Smiley’s Caroline Cook and
Shakespeare’s Cordelia are evident very early on in her novel A Thousand Acres. Both characters are
strong-minded women that demonstrate a degree of virtue throughout their
respective stories.
Caroline’s older sister Ginny, the protagonist of the novel,
describes Caroline on page 33 of ATA claiming
that “She was always looking for the rights and wrongs of every argument”. In chapter 6, Ginny tries to convince Caroline
to apologize to their father, Larry Cook. Caroline had angered their father by being
hesitant towards his offer to retire and divide his farm evenly between his
three daughters. Ginny, who is excited about inheriting the acres, approaches
her younger sister after Sunday Mass hoping that she can ease tensions between
the two.
Caroline is certainly an intelligent women. Unlike her other
two sisters she decided that life on a farm did not suit her. Therefore, she
became a lawyer, got married, and moved away from their hometown. Her drive and
independence demonstrate the strength of her character, which is reminiscent of
Cordelia’s.
Caroline, who was in turn upset with her father, does not feel
the need to apologize. She believes that she was only looking out
for Larry's and her best interests. When Ginny asks, “Can’t you just make
allowances”, Caroline says, “It’s time we stopped making allowances”.
Caroline only agrees to talk with her father to appease
Ginny. Thus far in the novel Caroline has proved repeatedly that she only has
her father's and sisters' best interests in mind. Similar to Cordelia, Caroline
has the strength and presence of mind to do what is best for her family.
I agree with you that Caroline is the only one that has her family's best interests in mind. She is definitely the most independent and driven one of the family and i think that makes her have an edge over the rest. Her strong will shows in all that she does, such as getting off the farm and becoming a lawyer.
ReplyDeleteI agree it was easy to assume that Caroline was meant to represent Cordelia in the remake of the play, except she is not exiled by force more like bettering herself. But there has to be differences to keep anyone interested. I also have to agree that she is both the strongest, most driven and independent character in the play. But to add my own two sense, her leaving the farm gives her character a worse connotation than in the play since she left her loved ones by choice.
ReplyDeleteWhile I totally agree with your assessment and analysis of Caroline's character, there are some key differences in her character and Cordelia. Yes, she is level-headed and educated, but her character comes off as almost pretentious. She never goes home, has this awful relationship with her family, and still manages to put out what people are doing wrong and right. Even though I agree with her observations and her opinion of the other characters, there is a certain "sass" in Caroline that is not obvious in Cordelia, who was almost blindly loyal to her father, even in his darkest moments.
ReplyDeleteI feel that Caroline is also incredibly loyal to her father the way that Cordelia was to Lear. Despite him treating her poorly, Caroline still tries to keep in touch regarding her father's welfare. Caroline's relationship with her sisters is very tense, which is also reminiscent of King Lear.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that just like Cordelia that Caroline had the best interest of her father in mind. I think that Alex had a good point in the fact that unlike Cordelia, Caroline had hardly been around the farm and had a bad relationship with her family. That fact might be something that may need to be discussed in class because I am interested to see what the rest of the class feels about that. Since I am replying to this post after we were assigned more reading I have an advantage in knowing that Caroline also is going to help her father try and get the farm back by using a lawsuit. Which is similar to King Lear as Cordelia came back to help her father. All in all this is a great blog post.
ReplyDelete