William Shakespeare's King Lear and Jane Smiley’s “A Thousand Acres” are two literary works that are often popular to compare due to the fact that Smiley based her novel off of this famous play. Between character parallels and themes, there are many ways to compare the similarities and differences between these two works. Although “A Thousand Acres” is based off of King Lear, it doesn’t all match up exactly the same.
While the two literary works, there are obvious character parallels. Larry Cook is a character that is based off of the character King Lear. They share one main item that makes them similar, that being the land that they own and or rule. King Lear is the King of England and therefore owns all of England’s land while Larry owns over a thousand acres of farmland in Iowa. Another set of characters include Cordelia and Caroline. Cordelia is the youngest daughter of Lear and she loves her father very dearly, but when asked if she truly does, she is unable to produce the words to describe the love she feels for him; therefore, leading Lear to believe that she doesn’t love him and thus disowning her. Caroline, on the other hand, is the youngest daughter of Larry and while she does …show more content…
An example would be the poisoning attempts of Goneril on Regan and Ginny on Rose. These eldest daughter's attempted to poison their middle sister, in Goneril’s case it was to have the kingdom to herself, while Ginny was overtaken by jealousy that Rose’s life has been so successful. Another big similarity would be when Pete sabotages his father’s farm equipment, but only because he thought Larry was going to use it. Instead his father Harold ended up using it and was blinded due to Pete’s actions. In King Lear, Pete’s counterpart Cornwall had stabbed out Gloucester’s eyes because he knew where Lear was hiding and he also knew something about a French invasion that was
While the two literary works, there are obvious character parallels. Larry Cook is a character that is based off of the character King Lear. They share one main item that makes them similar, that being the land that they own and or rule. King Lear is the King of England and therefore owns all of England’s land while Larry owns over a thousand acres of farmland in Iowa. Another set of characters include Cordelia and Caroline. Cordelia is the youngest daughter of Lear and she loves her father very dearly, but when asked if she truly does, she is unable to produce the words to describe the love she feels for him; therefore, leading Lear to believe that she doesn’t love him and thus disowning her. Caroline, on the other hand, is the youngest daughter of Larry and while she does …show more content…
An example would be the poisoning attempts of Goneril on Regan and Ginny on Rose. These eldest daughter's attempted to poison their middle sister, in Goneril’s case it was to have the kingdom to herself, while Ginny was overtaken by jealousy that Rose’s life has been so successful. Another big similarity would be when Pete sabotages his father’s farm equipment, but only because he thought Larry was going to use it. Instead his father Harold ended up using it and was blinded due to Pete’s actions. In King Lear, Pete’s counterpart Cornwall had stabbed out Gloucester’s eyes because he knew where Lear was hiding and he also knew something about a French invasion that was