An Analysis Of Sam Shepard’s “family Trilogy”from Perspective Of Trauma Theory

Enjoying the same reputation as Edward Albee and David Mamet,Sam Shepard is regarded as one of the most important playwrights in modern American theatre.The family trilogy,Curse of the Starving Class,Buried Child,and True West,are his most famous works.Different from previous studies,which mainly focus on the technique,symbols,theme and structure,this thesis tries to explore Sam Shepard’s tragic view of life through a detailed analysis of these three plays from the perspective of trauma theory.The analysis covers the cultural trauma,familial trauma,and war trauma displayed in these three dramas.More specifically,loss of the West,the incest and infanticide and national war memory all victimize family members for years in plays.Through a detailed study of trauma event,trauma syndromes and trauma recovery existing in three middle-class families,this dissertation aims at finding out Sam Shepard’s understanding of the life,family relationship,social reality and national influence.His tragic outlook on life mainly includes two aspects: the curse of the family past and its predestination of fate for the offspring;the loss of masculinity in contemporary America.Although Shepard provides healing methods for trauma,which is to face up the trauma and telling-cure,these recovery hardly escapes the family and social influence.