Caroline in Jane Smileys A Thousand Acres :: Smiley Thousand Acres Essays

Caroline in A Thousand Acres It is really striking that a novel in which bodies of people and bodies of land (and, intertextually, bodies of text) are so central, creates a character that is so distinctly "unbodied": Caroline Cook. Nevertheless, it is in keeping with traditional and patriarchal interpretations of Cordelia's character in King Lear: a paragon of purity and transcendence. While her sisters' bodies are thoroughly described and, not least, imbued with meaning, Caroline is always described in terms of her business-like " 'take-me-seriously-or-I'll-sue-you' demeanor" (13), her expensive clothes and assertive actions. She is in fact described like a man, a trait first exposed when she as a child says that she's not going to be a farmwife when she grows up, but a farmer (61), then when Ginny has her moment of insight toward the end, and suddenly sees everybody clearly for what they are: "her eyes darting from one face to another, calculating, always calculating. [...] She climbs into Daddy's lap, and her gaze slithers around the room, looking to see if we have noticed how he prefers her." (306) She is still unbodied here, described in terms of eyes and mind. This is metaphorically a male domain; in Western thought, the gaze is traditionally male, categorizing external reality in order to have power over it by utilizing reason. Nor, of course, is it incidental that Caroline is the educated one, emphasizing further her belonging to the "male" realm. Whereas Rose's "man-ness" is based on a destructive rage, Caroline's is based on cold calculation, therefore she is more successful playing by the rules of the patriarchy. It must be remembered, however, that she is able to use the system because she has been shielded from its negative side. Ginny and Rose have always protected her from Larry's anger, incest, and complete suppression of their own identities. While Larry signifies so many things to the elder sisters, not least the horribly intimate -familiar- memories of incest, Caroline can say about him that he looks "as familiar as a father should look, no more, no less". In this, as Ginny replies, she is lucky. (362) Of course, saying that Caroline is like a man signals complicity with gender-stereotypes. She is a positive character in that she is assertive and self-contained, as when she criticizes Larry's idea to divide the farm.