The Failure of Promoting a Sense of Sisterhood in the Face of Patriarchy         : A Feminist Reading of Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres    

Abstract: This study is a feminist reading of Jane Smiley's novel A Thousand Acres. It focuses on the Cook sisters and their lives in a farming community at a time that coincides with the end of second wave feminism. In particular, it pays attention to the absence of sisterhood among the three sisters in the novel. It analyses first each individual sister including their different approaches to sisterhood and then their failure to unite in the type of strategic, politically motivated notion of sisterhood that was promoted by second wave feminism.          By looking at different reasons why the sisters cannot establish a strong sisterhood my essay aims to demonstrate that A Thousand Acres not only criticises patriarchal society in its portrayal of the Cook family but also, and more importantly, that it criticises second wave feminism by pointing out its failure in terms of promoting a sense of sisterhood.