A Thousand Acres Chapters 15–17 Summary & Analysis

Chapters 15–17

Summary: Chapter 15

During a Monopoly game, Jess reveals that Harold has some complaints about his new tractor, which leads to his analysis of his father’s personality. Jess believes that Harold deliberately invites people to think he’s a fool so that he can win them over. Harold’s behavior is a smoke screen for a canny intelligence that makes him successful. Ginny is impressed with Jess’s evaluation. They laugh about a rumor that Harold is going to change his will, perhaps favoring Jess as much as or more than his brother Loren. Ty and Jess talk about the opportunity to rent land. Jess says that he would try new things, a suggestion that Ty criticizes later with Ginny. Ty thinks Jess doesn’t understand that farming is more complicated than it appears.

Summary: Chapter 16

Ginny muses about how the men in her life suffer in silence. She feels less critical of them than she has felt in the past, but she notes that women suffer more communally. After the lively Monopoly night, Ginny goes to her father’s house later than usual, and he complains about the lack of eggs. She goes home to get the ones she bought but forgot and returns to cook his breakfast. Ginny turns a question about Caroline’s phone calls over and over in her mind but decides to keep quiet. At home, she calls Caroline, who questions Larry’s drinking and driving and, again, the transfer of the farm. Ginny suggests that Larry stay with Caroline for a while to get to know Frank, an idea that Caroline considers ridiculous. Caroline accuses Ginny of not looking out for their father’s interests, says that if she had been there, things would be different, and hangs up. Ginny is shaken by the conversation and thinks about how Caroline was once a psychology major who tried to analyze their father and his drinking. She decides to keep this conversation to herself.

Summary: Chapter 17

Ginny is shampooing the carpet when Jess appears. She says he’s sudden, and he says she’s oblivious. He wants to walk because he needs to talk, so they go to a dump on the property where fragrant wild roses grow. They talk about snakes and wild plants in a bold and exhilarating privacy that feels as terrifying to Ginny as if they had gone off to Minneapolis together. Jess asks Ginny who her father’s favorite is, and she replies that it’s Caroline, who has never been afraid of him. Ginny asks Jess who his father’s favorite is, and he replies that it’s him. Jess says that Loren is spooked by what happened with the Cooks’ transfer. He confesses that his attitude about eating meat changed with a steer he raised named Bob. They talk about vegetarianism, their families, Harold’s will, and the future and the past. And then they kiss.

Analysis: Chapters 15–17

The metaphor of Ginny using the Rug Doctor to clean her house is a significant one. Ginny is practical and efficient, organized, and always careful. She takes solace in the sound of the vacuum cleaner. Ginny’s admission that while she is cleaning, she can internally find sweet refuge from her family’s dysfunctions is a terse truth. It is poignant that Ginny compares the lines laid by the vacuum cleaner to those laid when combing a field, the imposition of order on systems that are inherently disordered: home and nature.

The Monopoly games offer a bit of levity in this stark and depressing narrative. Readers can sense that it’s not going to end well for most of these characters but that others will rise above the fray. The symbol of the game is significant. Each of the main characters of the younger generation of farmers—Ginny, Ty, Rose, Pete, and Jess—represents a role in this game of A Thousand Acres, and their tokens signify those roles. The games give both the family and readers a chance to sit back, relax, and laugh. They are comic relief and metaphor, filled with betting and hedging and hoarding and second-guessing. Neither Larry nor Harold is part of these games, only their heirs, and not Loren, Caroline, or Frank.

Harold emerges as more of a main character in these chapters. Jess commends his father’s intelligence and admires the way he handles and manages his farm and his community. Smiley prompts readers to wonder if Harold might duplicate Larry’s mistake and deed his farm to his sons before he dies. The two neighbors have long competed and reacted to each other’s moves. Jess respects Harold more than Ginny respects Larry, but readers don't yet understand why.

The sexual tension between Ginny and Jess, revealed from Ginny’s point of view, continues to build in these chapters. For example, it is telling that Jess didn’t go to Rose to talk and instead came to Ginny. They meet in a wild rose thicket, creating imagery ripe with figurative intensity. As Book Two comes to its finale, Jess’s words “Hints. Just hints” clue readers into Smiley’s entire narrative scheme. Hints, just hints, are the author’s building blocks. Jess then reveals that the more he talks about things, the better he feels—another detail that moves the narrative forward. The more the characters converse and share, the more readers understand, but it all unfolds slowly, methodically, like a storm brewing on the Iowa horizon. Ginny is not a talker by nature, but Jess is. Her conversations with Jess open her up. Their kiss opens her up. She has been waiting for this opening for a long time. It is the perfect culmination of Book Two. Ginny has stepped over a line and given in to her desire.

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