The representation of Goneril and Regan in King Lear and, Ginny and Rose in A Thousand Acres showcases a direct parallel to the image that women can not handle having a high position in the patriarchy. In King Lear their father was depicted as a powerful man who gave up all his power to his daughters. Once Lear had given them half of his lands, they start to turn their backs on their father; from refusing to shelter him to stripping away the hundred men he had left to abandoning him in the thunderstorm. After visiting his daughters in their new kingdoms, Regan responds to her father “O, sir, you are old! Nature in you stands on the very verge of her confine. You should be ruled, and led...say you have wronged her” (Shakespeare, 2.4.160-166).
