Jane Smiley's "A Thousand Acres" tells a dark tale of a corrupt patriarchal society which operates through concealment. It is a story in which the characters attempt to manipulate one another through the secrets they possess and the subsequent revelation of those secrets. In her novel, Smiley gives us a very simple moral regarding this patriarchal society: women who remain financially and emotionally dependent on men decay; those able to break the economic and emotional …showed first 75 words of 758 total…

…showed last 75 words of 758 total…into strength as she envisions a more reasonable (and perhaps more feminized) social order. She forces us to ask what ideals we are being sacrificed to... patriotism? Maintaining appearances? Maintaining patriarchal standards? Smiley speaks for all who have been marginalized when she states (through Jess), "Maybe to you it looked like I just vanished, but I was out there" (55)! WORKS CITED: Smiley, Jane. A Thousand Acres. New York: Fawcett Columbine, <Tab/>1991.