Caroline in A Thousand Acres It is truly astonishing that a novel in which bodies of people and bodies of land (and, intertextually, bodies of text) are so central, creates a character who is so clearly "disembodied": Caroline Cook. However, it is in line with traditional and patriarchal interpretations of the character of Cordelia in King Lear: an example of purity and transcendence. While her sisters' bodies are carefully described and, not least, imbued with meaning, Caroline is always described in terms of her businessmanlike "take me seriously or I'll sue you" (13) behavior, her clothes expensive and his assertive actions. She is in fact described as a man, a trait first revealed when she as a child says that when she grows up she will not be a peasant, but a farm girl (61), then when Ginny has her moment of insight towards the end, and at She suddenly sees everyone clearly for what they are: "her eyes dart from face to face, calculating, always calculating. [...] She climbs into Daddy's lap, and her gaze slides around the room, trying to see if we noticed how he prefers it." (306) Here she is still incorporeal, described in terms of eyes and mind. This is metaphorically a male domain; in Western thought the gaze is traditionally male, it categorizes external reality to have power using reason. Nor, of course, is it coincidental that Caroline is the educated one, further underscoring her belonging to the "male" realm. While Rose's "manliness" is based on destructive anger, Caroline's is based on cold calculation, thus playing more successfully by the rules of patriarchy. It should be remembered, however, that she is able to use the system because she has been protected from its negative side. Ginny and Rose have always protected her from Larry's anger, incest, and complete suppression of their identities. While Larry means many things to her older sisters, not least the horribly intimate and familiar memories of incest, Caroline can say of him that he seems "as familiar as a father should seem, no more, no less." In this, as Ginny replies, she is lucky. (362)Of course, saying that Caroline is like a man signals complicity with gender stereotypes. She is a positive character in that she is assertive and reserved, such as when she criticizes Larry's idea of ​​dividing the farm.