The Deep Structure In Sam Shepard’s Family Trilogy

Curse of the Starving Class, Buried Child, and True West are generally known as SamShepard s family trilogy. The central concern in the three best-known of his works revolvesaround the investigation of the dysfunctional family. This thesis tries to closely study thethree plays and endeavors to locate the common deep structure in them. By the deepstructure I mean the common patterns of the three dysfunctional families in the familytrilogy. After that, this thesis argues that Shepard, in presenting the audience family issuesin the postmodern America, provides them with a novel insight into the complexities of adysfunctional family.The three family plays are all set against the backdrop of predicaments and crises.Chapter One is devoted to exploring the constitution of a dysfunctional family. Each familyin the three plays is rife with all kinds of family problems and they seem to share somesimilarities: the fallen father, the indifferent mother and dysfunctional family relations.Chapter Two focuses on the reactions of family members confronted with desperate familysituations. Almost all the members seek to escape from family predicaments. They attemptto extricate themselves from family plight, family past and patriarchal influence. Hard asthey try, they could never succeed in escaping. They are either short of means to leavehome or always drawn back to their family after years of wandering in the outside world.Chapter Three centers on the discussion of family heredity. In some sense, this accounts forthe fact that there is no way for escape from family. In the family trilogy, the fathers arelosers and escapists. The sons despise them and strive to become different from them. Infact, they fall prey to the same hereditary curse that befell their fathers. In face of the cruelreality, they undergo the transformation from an optimistic person into someone just liketheir fathers, violent, alcoholic and isolated.