Father/Daughter Relationships in King Lear and A Thousand Acres The bond between a father and daughter is one of the strongest emotional bonds found in many families. From the time their little girls emerge from the womb to the time their young women marry, the father reigns as head of the family, controller, and protector. While this is true for many families, sometimes daddy's little girls make all the rules. They possess the ability to acquire what they want through their incessant whining, crying, and batting their eyelashes. Daddy's girls assert control over most situations and possess negotiation skills that rival those of Wall Street's top stockbrokers. Tugging at daddy's heart, his little girls play their fathers like puppets. Dad appears as the boss, but everyone knows who reigns as boss. Although the father takes on the role of leader as the male figure at the head of the family, the role of protector makes the father-daughter bond particularly strong. Fathers protect their little girls from all harm, so they proclaim. What happens when something shatters the respect and trust within the father-daughter relationship? What happens if the father hurts the daughter or vice versa? King Lear by William Shakespeare and A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley delve into the theme of father-daughter relationships. Both literary works carefully examine the father-daughter theme, but, in King Lear, Lear receives sympathy and not his sinister and evil daughters, Goneril and Regan, while in A Thousand Acres Larry Cook emerges as the villain, the daughters, Ginny. and Rose, emerge as the heroines. In every family there is a favorite. The favorites also make it to the middle of the card and are the ones who survive the storm that rages in their lives. Although some heroes eventually die, Lear from King Lear and Ginny and Rose from A Thousand Acres establish themselves as examples of total self-respect. Although people do not respect them, they persevere and live their lives to the best of their ability emerging as the only truly heroic characters. Works Cited Harbage, Alfred. "King Lear: An Introduction." Shakespeare: The Tragedies: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood: Prentice-Hall, 1964: 113-22. Knight, Wilson. "King Lear and the Comedy of the Grotesque." Shakespeare: The Tragedies: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood:Prentice-Hall, 1964: 123-38.Shakespeare, William. King Lear. New York: Scholastic, 1970. Smiley, Jane. A thousand acres. Thorndike: Thorndike Press, 1991.