The Pursuit Of Ideal Personality

This thesis attempts to conduct an androgynous interpretation of Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres. It aims to reveal the androgynous concern embedded in the novel, and draws a conclusion that one important theme of the novel is to argue that the harmonious androgyny is the ideal personality in fictional world and even in real world.This thesis consists of the introduction, the body and the conclusion. The introduction provides information about Jane Smiley and her work A thousand Acres together with a comprehensive literature review and theoretical foundation. Besides, the significance and layout of this thesis are elaborated in this part.In the body part, three characters with distinct personality are chose to be analyzed. In Chapter One, Larry who owns the one-psycho-gender personality steadily carries through the alleged gender prescription, which results to the tragedy of his fate. The case of Larry stresses that the harmonious androgyny is the ideal personality from the reverse side. In Chapter Two, though both male and female attributes are exhibited on the personality of Rose, the two of these don’t balance and cooperate, which detains Rose in the embryonic state of androgyny. The lamentable fate of Rose proves a further step towards the ideal androgyny is necessary. In Chapter Three, faced with the drastic change of the family, the personality of Ginny undergoes the transformation of the state of one-psycho-gender, then the embryonic androgyny, and finally the harmonious androgyny.The conclusion makes a summary of this thesis; meanwhile the thesis statement is restated in this section: the novel aims to reveal the truth that the harmonious androgyny is the ideal personality in fictional and even in the real world.