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Book 3, Chapter 21
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Thousand Acres, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
King Lear and Good vs. Evil
Women, Sexual Abuse, and Fertility
Inheritance, Land, and Memory
Revenge
Appearance vs. Reality
Summary
Analysis
Ty and Ginny plan to expand their equipment so that they can have a hog farm. Their plans become more elaborate, and they look into buying a silo and other top-of-the-line technology to transform the farmland. They plan on getting a loan with the help of Marv Carson, the banker.
Ginny and Ty want the best farmland possible, and this means spending a lot of money on equipment. They’re becoming increasingly ambitious and concerned with money in general, meaning that they pay more and more attention when Larry wastes money (their money, ultimately) on frivolous purchases.
Themes
Ginny drives Larry to the chiropractor, who needs to take a look at Larry’s injured back. In the car, Ginny feels a sense of foreboding, as she almost always does when she’s alone with her father. To calm herself, she thinks of Jess, who is a strange combination of “American greed and Oriental serenity,” she thinks.
Jess represents an interesting synthesis of types: he’s something of a hippie, based on his draft dodging and Zen ideas, but he’s also just as invested in farmland and property as everybody else. It’s suggested that his “serenity” is in part an act to cover up his greed and allow him to manipulate people.
Themes
At the chiropractor, Ginny tells Larry she’s going to go shopping, but Larry forces her to wait in the office so that he doesn’t have to wait for Ginny to return from shopping. Ginny realizes that she’s almost as intimidated by her father as she was when she was a child.
Larry still exerts a huge amount of control over Ginny, forcing her to wait for him instead of pursuing her own pleasure—not a bad metaphor for the way their relationship has always worked out.
Themes
After the appointment, Larry and Ginny go eat dinner, though Ginny isn’t hungry. Larry mutters that Rose and Ginny should show him more respect—just because his land is theirs doesn’t mean they don’t have to respect him. As Ginny listens to Larry’s lecture, she finds her point of view “vanishing.”
Larry is conscious that Ginny and Rose seem more concerned with their property than with taking care of him. Smiley suggests that Larry is being unreasonable and irrationally resentful, but also that Rose and Ginny should take better care of their father.
Themes
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