Rose’s Breast Cancer in Jane Smileys A Thousand Acres :: Smiley Thousand Acres Essays

Roses Breast Cancer in A Thousand Acres   Pete, representing erratic male rage in the novel, has a annals of abusing Rose. This climaxes when he breaks her arm. It follows a terrible logic that since male rage hurts her body, so does her receive, the impetus of which is provided by the patriarchal system. Ginnys description of Pete fits Rose equally well, with an individual retirement account that would be quiet, but corrosive, erupting at odd times (31). Roses breast cancer symbolizes the way she is literally consumed with anger (the cancer eats at her flesh, consuming her body). Anger is the altogether way she knows to deal with her father, her husband, men and the system they represent Were not going to be sad. Were going to be angry until we die. Its the only hope.(354) She doesnt see that anger is destructive, that anger is in fact why things have turned out the way they have. She is continually reminded of the toll her anger takes on her body, as her arm unconsciousl y strays to the disoriented muscles under her other arm, by the lost breast. Nevertheless, she ignores the signs, anger has become a part of her body. The fact that this act resembles a posture signifying an attempt to contain her totality -her everywhereflowing anger- suggests this, as does the fact that she especially does this when she is angry She pushed her hair back with her hand, then put her fist on her hip, defiant. Except that on the way down, her fingers fluttered over the vanished breast, the vanished muscles. (151) Her body, then, enacts her strategy. If you cant beat them, join them. If the system is based on egocentricity, cruelty, coldness and rage, then those will be her weapons. When Jess backs out of farming their land, she says When it came right down to building on something that we had, it scared him to build on cobblers last and bad luck and anger and destruction (352). The underlying assumption of her statement is that it is impossible to challenge all t he death and destruction, so one might as well turn it to ones own advantage. This strategy, ironically, turns her into what the patriarchy has accused hers and Ginnys intertextual counterparts -Regan and Goneril- of an inhuman half-man. When she reigns supreme over the thousand acres, she has turned into her own worst nightmare her father.