샘 셰퍼드의『진짜 서부』: 이상과 현실

Sam Shepard's True West Ideal and actuality

Sam Shepard is one of the leading American playwrights who represented Off-Off Broadway in the 1960s and 1970s. In his early days, he wrote many experimental plays but later he turned to realism. However, under the superficial realism in his later plays, we find that they contain experimental devices and themes True West (1980) is the last play of his realistic family trilogy. This play shows that the tradition of Old West, which is symbolized and replaced by desert, disappeared in the industrialized cities of modern West The Old West is compared with the modern West through the struggle of two brothers, Lee and Austin. Their father, 'Old Man', ran out on his family and went to the desert but did not succeed there. He shows that he failed in achieving the American Dream. The family appears unusual and demolished. The relationships of the characters are not based on love and belief. The family symbolizes the negative aspects of modern American society. After Austin recognizes the actual situation finding that there is no real life in the modern West, he tries to leave the city and his family. He wants to go to the desert in search of a new life. However, in the last tableau Lee blocks the exit and the two brothers square off. It implies that they are doomed to continue their struggle. The message implies that American society today is lacking the same positive values they once had in the Old West.