Illusion And Reality ¡¤ True And False

Sam Shepard, one of the most important contemporary American playwrights, is famous both for his prolific nature and the variety of writing styles. Since his early avant-garde plays of the 1960s, Shepard has continued to experiment both with form and content. As a result, his plays are different from one another and often called colorful collages. Between the 1970s and the 1980s, Shepard finished writing a series of family plays, namely Curse of the Starving Class, Buried Child, True West, Fool of Love and A Lie of the Mind. They are often regarded as his most successful works because of the innovations made in their compositions.In this thesis, Shepard's family plays are analyzed from three aspects: the return to realistic traditions, deconstructions of realism and combinations of different dramatic arts. By means of this analysis, it will be demonstrated that family plays go beyond realistic and modern dramatic traditions, possessing distinctly postmodern characteristics. As a matter of fact, within the postmodern construction of the family plays, Shepard reveals complicated feelings, experiences and dreams particular to American contemporary life. Beyond this, in typical postmodern style; these plays open up speculation upon the truth and falsity of the theatrical arts for their respective audiences.