Sam Shepard Essay -- Biography Biographies Essays

Sam ShepardSam Shepard is a contemporary American playwright and actor whose plays deal with modern affectionate concerns. He was influenced by Beat Generation writers such as Allen Ginsberg who rebelled against a society of economic affluence and social conformity following military man War II. Insatiable consumerism became a central trait of postwar life, goaded by the mass media, advertising, and generous loan terms (Sam Shepard). From this asynchronous transfer mode the Beat Writers came forward to declare their alienation from what they saw as the assent of suburban conformity in favor of what Ginsberg called the lost America of grapple (Sam Shepard). It was from this generation of writers that Shepard was inspired to address the issues of alienation from society, loss of indistinguishability and the deterioration of the family structure. The themes explored by Shepard may be described as the opinion of America torn between the idealistic values and painful realities of a frontier paved over by a parking tie (Sam Shepard) . In other words, progress and change are destroying the incorporated values of America as the former replaces the latter. Having grown up in the 50s and 60s, a period of social metamorphosis, Shepard must(prenominal) have observed for himself that the apple-pie family of popular destination was far different from the changing face of societys real life family whose members struggle for indistinguishability and connection. As television presented an idealization of suburban family life, reality suggested otherwise.Shepard is known for his external oblique muscle story lines, slightly mysterious characters, and use of surreal elements with images of popular culture (Sam Shepard). The majority of his plays deal with the betrayal of the American dream, the search for ... ...iculate generous to compose his thoughts, and Austin does not have the adventurous spirit to pull round in the desert. Therefore, they realize their identi ties are not found in for each one other.The characters in each of these plays grapple for identity and connection, which Shepard recognizes as true in modern American families. As they assert themselves, family tension is the result and the Brady good deal dream is only that a dream.Works CitedGilman, Richard. Sam Shepard Seven Plays. Introduction. unsanded York trivial Books, 1981. xi-xxvii.Sam Shepard. Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 99. Microsoft Corporation. 1993-1998.Shepard, Sam. Sam Shepard Seven Plays. New York Bantam Books, 1981.Williams, Megan. Nowhere Man and the Twentieth-Century Cowboy Images of Identity and American History in Sam Shepards True West. Modern Drama. 40 (Spring 1997) 57-73.