Body and Nature as Signifying System in Jane Smileys A Thousand Acres :: Smiley Thousand Acres Essays

Body and Nature as Signifying System in A Thousand Acres The fascinating aspect of theories about the bodies, is that our bodies lie somewhere in the grey area between the physical and the intellectual realm (in itself testifying to the falsity of such dichotomies). On the one hand, they are biological; genetically programmed flesh. On the other, they are continuous sites of signification; embodying (no pun intended) the essentially textual quality of a human subject's identity. A Thousand Acres foregrounds issues raised by the perspective that one's body can be the vehicle for understanding of the self and the world. One of the ways this is done, is a part of a larger project of ecofeminist rhetoric, creating numerous analogies between the body and nature. This is first seen when Ginny utilizes nature by the Scenic. Not only are "the cattails green and fleshy-looking"(7, italics mine), but the natural scene forms a signifying system like her own body, a way to metaphorically internalize the problems of human interaction. Wonderfully incorporated into this is also the intertextual body created by A Thousand Acres and King Lear. In the storm scene, Lear calls Regan and Goneril "those pelican daughters" (III.iv.75, meaning that they feed on the parent's blood). By the Scenic, Ginny sees pelicans reemerging after supposedly being annihilated by her farmer ancestors, foreshadowing the reemerging of her self after a life of suppression. She can read nature like a text about her own suppression and the suppression and hiding of what is actually going on between the characters in this novel: "The view along the Scenic, I thought, taught me a lesson about what is below the level of the visible" (9). Nature, for Ginny, is understood by way of the intertwining of its and her body's past. She "was always aware [...] of the of the water in the soil, the way it travels from particle to particle", an awareness that eventually evolves into an understanding and identification. She reflects upon the millions of years and billions of "leaves, seeds, feathers, scales, flesh, bones, petals, pollen" (131) that constitute the soil they live on. The hope is that this is a large-scale development of corporeal transformation that transcends the petty exploitative farming of a patriarchal society, and that she is a part of it. After all, her body is not only a part of the soil, and vice versa, but of the poisoning of nature: "My inheritance is with me, sitting in my chair. Body and Nature as Signifying System in Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres :: Smiley Thousand Acres Essays Body and Nature as Signifying System in A Thousand Acres The fascinating aspect of theories about the bodies, is that our bodies lie somewhere in the grey area between the physical and the intellectual realm (in itself testifying to the falsity of such dichotomies). On the one hand, they are biological; genetically programmed flesh. On the other, they are continuous sites of signification; embodying (no pun intended) the essentially textual quality of a human subject's identity. A Thousand Acres foregrounds issues raised by the perspective that one's body can be the vehicle for understanding of the self and the world. One of the ways this is done, is a part of a larger project of ecofeminist rhetoric, creating numerous analogies between the body and nature. This is first seen when Ginny utilizes nature by the Scenic. Not only are "the cattails green and fleshy-looking"(7, italics mine), but the natural scene forms a signifying system like her own body, a way to metaphorically internalize the problems of human interaction. Wonderfully incorporated into this is also the intertextual body created by A Thousand Acres and King Lear. In the storm scene, Lear calls Regan and Goneril "those pelican daughters" (III.iv.75, meaning that they feed on the parent's blood). By the Scenic, Ginny sees pelicans reemerging after supposedly being annihilated by her farmer ancestors, foreshadowing the reemerging of her self after a life of suppression. She can read nature like a text about her own suppression and the suppression and hiding of what is actually going on between the characters in this novel: "The view along the Scenic, I thought, taught me a lesson about what is below the level of the visible" (9). Nature, for Ginny, is understood by way of the intertwining of its and her body's past. She "was always aware [...] of the of the water in the soil, the way it travels from particle to particle", an awareness that eventually evolves into an understanding and identification. She reflects upon the millions of years and billions of "leaves, seeds, feathers, scales, flesh, bones, petals, pollen" (131) that constitute the soil they live on. The hope is that this is a large-scale development of corporeal transformation that transcends the petty exploitative farming of a patriarchal society, and that she is a part of it. After all, her body is not only a part of the soil, and vice versa, but of the poisoning of nature: "My inheritance is with me, sitting in my chair.