States of Shock, Simpatico, and Eyes for Consuela

Wade, Leslie A.; Roudane, Matthew

doi:10.1017/ccol0521771587.016

Cited by 4 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…The majority of Shepard's plays downplay female characters, treating them as subordinate characters (Wade, 2000). For example, according to Westerlund (2015), in Kicking a Dead Horse, Shepard does not focus on developing the female character, who is physically and mentally subjugated.…”

Section: Female Characters and Male Identity Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Male Identity in Sam Shepardʼs Eyes for Consuela

Al-Zayadi¹,

Az-Zubaidy²

2022

JCEWU

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ABSTRACT The focus of this study is Sam Shepard's Eyes for Consuela, a play which scrutinizes the functions and dysfunctions of human relationships in terms of societal and family structures. In this paper we examine Eyes for Consuela as a play conveying men's struggle for identity. Moreover, it depicts how the struggle between the two leading male characters is resolved by the primary female character in the play. As such, the play dramatizes how male characters' struggle for identity is preoccupied by their relation to female characters. Shepard's play presents the journey of an American man in a Mexican remote jungle. Hence, it shows two parallel and opposing worlds, American and Mexican, which sheds the light on two different settings and identities. This also represents a struggle in the creation of male identity for the male characters. Relying on Connell's hegemonic masculinity theory, we argue that Eyes for Consuela portrays how the discrepancies in the two male identities are influenced by their different cultures. Further, we suggest that it follows Kimmel's Guyland model, by revealing how the fear of being dominated might initiate manly attitudes and encourage identity evolution.

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Section: Female Characters and Male Identity Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Male Identity in Sam Shepardʼs Eyes for Consuela

Al-Zayadi¹,

Az-Zubaidy²

2022

JCEWU

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“…In A Lie of the Mind, Shepard explored "the American family and in so doing exposed deeprooted aspects of the national character" [2]. Jake is one of the characters who is represented as an American character by American national symbol, the flag, toward the middle of the play.…”

Section: National Mythsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, in some critics' opinion, A Lie of the Mind leaves open the possibility of redemption for American identity, expressed through the flag-folding ritual between Baylor and Meg indicates "a desire for reconciliation, without credible dramatization" [2]. Noticing Mike's use of the national flag as a gun cover, his father Baylor rages against his action.…”

Section: International Letters Of Social and Humanistic Sciences Vol 64mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…He has respect and interest for cowboys and their principles such as ruggedness, pioneering spirit and strong connections to the land and this partly explains the mythic treatment of the West in many of his plays [33]. In 1980s, after the election of Ragan, "national identity was being substituted by national pure American identity while a prevailing sense of 'nostalgia' for this sort of American identity, 'the frontier, cowboys' was dominant" [2]. The American people in Shepard's works cannot ever achieve the fundamental characteristics that constitute his perception of "the American", especially their strong attachment to the land.…”

Section: The Myth Of Cowboy and Wild Westmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Disintegration of American family in the postmodern world, in effect, is one of the recurrent themes in most of Shepard's plays. Sam Shepard's A Lie of the Mind is an odd play which stands as a crucial work in his career, and "its ambitions and shortcomings shed important light on the plays that would follow in the 1990s" [2]. In this play "not quite realistic characters faced with an almost realistic situation" and in response, they create an alternate reality, a fantasy, a lie within their own minds that is so complex to differentiate what is real from what is illusion and false [3].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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“Everything in me Lies”

Falasiri

Ghasemi

2015

ILSHS

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ABSTRACT. In Sam Shepard's plays, America is full of traditional and mythical symbols. He uses these emblems in order to subvert their meanings and manifest the discrepancies between characters' living in the West and the realities they confront. In his play, A Lie of the Mind, Sam Shepard reflects on the traditional meanings of myth and the erasure of them in the postmodern societies. Furthermore, the postmodern universe in these three plays is bombarded with representation and distortions of reality, and hyperreality which make reality be masked and obscure. The characters enter in simulations of reality after accepting the fact that the true reality doesn't exist. As a matter of fact, myths are not real; they are simulations of the past myths. Media with its glamorous and captivating power is of the most influential mediums in constructing the hyper real.

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Remediating the culture industry

Thomas

2021

ETC

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This article examines to what dramaturgical effect Sam Shepard’s political play States of Shock (1991) remediates strategies associated with the culture industry. In plays, spectators forge an interpretation from a medium that is considered ‘hypermedial’ or capable of combining discrete signifying systems such as dialogue, costumes, acting style and scenography at the same time. In States of Shock, genre remediation implicates its audience in the spectacle of war by juxtaposing American war heroism and military ideology with entertaining vaudeville. By examining Shepard’s appropriation of the vaudeville genre in relation to other dramatic signifying systems, the article offers a new and more layered reading of the play’s supposedly ‘blatant’ political message.

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States of Shock, Simpatico, and Eyes for Consuela

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Male Identity in Sam Shepardʼs Eyes for Consuela

Male Identity in Sam Shepardʼs Eyes for Consuela

“Everything in me Lies”

Remediating the culture industry

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