Torn by War: Fragmented Individuals in Sam Shepard's States of Shock

Abstract

Sam Shepard is considered as one of the modern American playwrights who combined the individual and the social in his plays to draw an image of a postmodern American society, and American family in particular by focusing on uniquely American aspects of culture. He is concerned with the individual in America rather than the institution. Shepard investigates, in almost all of his plays, the functions and dysfunctions of his characters, as well as the connections of individuals within the context of the family system and other social structures. The majority of his plays center on the struggle and conflict that occurs between father and son, husband and wife, and brother and brother as they strive for supremacy or for survival in a fractured society. This theme can be found at the heart of all of his works. In addition, his protagonists have a propensity to be cut off from the rest of their society and to experience a sense of disintegration as a result of living in a society that is being ravaged by war and the rise of capitalism. His protagonists typically awaken to the realization that this sense of destruction has shaped their lives and become the primary obstacle that prevents them from leading a normal life. This paper discusses Sam Shepard’s play States of Shock as an anti-war work in which the playwright portrays American individuals who are traumatized, physically and psychologically, by war that left them fragmented in their own society.