https://shakespeare.edel.univ-poitiers.fr:443/shakespeare/index.php?id=223 Shakespeare en devenir N°1 — 2007 fr ven., 30 avril 2010 11:44:49 +0200 lun., 03 juil. 2023 18:12:18 +0200 https://shakespeare.edel.univ-poitiers.fr:443/shakespeare/index.php?id=223 0 https://shakespeare.edel.univ-poitiers.fr:443/shakespeare/index.php?id=74 A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley borrows characteristic structural elements from the plot of King Lear. The father’s legacy to his three daughters at the beginning of the novel (a legacy which is a catalyst of the gradual disintegration of the family), then the apocalyptic storm in the middle of the novel (a time of crisis and unveiling which also marks the father’s lapse into senility), and finally the accidental blindness, which strikes his friend and neighbor, all three elements unequivocally refer to the unfolding of the tragedy of King Lear’s. Moreover, the novel is based upon a similar cast of the characters and a double plot whose strands are interwoven. The hypotext, which is immediately identifiable, orientates the reader’s horizon of expectation: its tragic strength suffuses Jane Smiley’s novel. As in a tragedy, the reader is emotionally involved in the dramatic intensity of the text. The extreme concentration of the setting, which furthermore is often described as timeless, enhances the tragic dimension of the novel. The reader is also struck by the unusual coexistence of the literal and the metaphorical, theoretically incongruous with the requirements of realistic writing. As in King Lear, the central motifs (power, violence, greed, jealousy...) are intensified by systematically recurrent imagery which for instance equates watching with asserting power. However, in spite of the unmistakable echoes between narrative elements, the tragic is transmuted in the novel. The Shakespearean hypotext is blatantly distanced when the reader discovers that, the hamartia, which is after all minor in King Lear, is an unnatural fault (perpetrated by the father) in Jane Smiley’s novel where it constitutes a stunning paralipsis. The reader is thus led to readjust radically (and retroactively) the reading grid implied by the hypotext, a grid according to which Lear is a victim whose suffering induces compassion, and which therefore appears at complete odds with A Thousand Acres. The very ease of the reader’s “re-cognition” of the original seems integral to Smiley’s writing strategy as does the surprise entailed by the sudden rupture of his/her expectation by irony. The fluctuation of the distance between Shakespeare’s play and its contemporary avatar results in the blurring of meaning and precludes any univocal interpretation. Besides, the tragic undergoes a profound transmutation in the novel where the fault, even when named, remains wrapped in silence. Instead of King Lear’s sudden and spectacular downfall, the reader is witness to a stealthy and ineluctable disintegration which leads to the total implosion of the family whose memory is only kept alive by the eldest sister’s (Ginny’s) narrative. By entrusting one of the two victims with the narration, the novel proves not quite as dark as the play. By handling the narrative, the protagonist learns to see or at least gradually ‘unlearns’ the Law of the father and, in spite of indelible wounds, can at least survive. mer., 27 janv. 2010 18:09:07 +0100 https://shakespeare.edel.univ-poitiers.fr:443/shakespeare/index.php?id=74