Sergio

Jane Smiley's  A Thousand Acres is a modern day attempt at Shakespeare's King Lear. The story is set in 1980s Iowa narrated by (Lear's) Goneril, who here is named Ginny. Ginny's father Larry, who is a very proud and difficult person, decides to give his land to Ginny and her two sisters but, just like in King  Lear, Larry's favorite daughter, Caroline, rejects the land and leaves. But as you keep reading you begin to realize that this novel is not really an accurate interpretation of the Shakespeare's play. Unlike Lear, rather than focusing on the character development of the King or Father, Smiley focuses on the character development of Ginny and Rose. Instead of making these sisters look like the perpetrators Smiley makes them seem more like victims. This shows that Smiley does not really stay true to the source material.

The voice style of the narrator stays consistent throughout the novel, structurally. The narrators word choice, thoughts, sentence structures, etc. stay the same throughout.  But, the narrators abilities to interpret different situations and distinguish the line between false reality  and reality slowly change as you read. Interest levels might go down due to the fact that it is about farmers, in Iowa. But many readers might be attracted to dramatic events such as affairs, betrayal and abuse. The novel is overall very entertaining, contains a lot of description and is very  informative. Even though Smiley does not stay 100% faithful to Shakespeare she does a very good job at taking the base plot of an amazing play and turning it into something even more beautiful.