Dissecting Sam Shepard’s triad to illuminate Western Culture

Abstract

This paper aims to reveal how a family quarrel plays a major role in disintegration of the families in Sam Shepard’s plays. From his earliest plays to one of his most recent works Shepard has been depicting the American family. Shepard writes about the complicated relationships within the American family. Shepard explores the myths of
the American family using his own style by varying the conventions of nineteenth century. The traditional American family in Shepard’s play are build of mainly with three character types: the father (who used to be a drunkard), the estranged mother and the torment son. In this paper, we are focusing on Shepard’s family trilogy to depict the Western Culture. Shepard’s family trilogy includes Curse of the Starving Class(1976), Buried Child (1979), and True West (1980). Curse of the Starving Class - is a play about American family psyche which leads to the family disintegration. Buried Child - is a play which reflects the frustration among American people turning out to be family quarrels. True West - this play is all about the rivalry between two brothers who met each other after a period of five years time.