ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: “THE NIGHTMARE of the NATION
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ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: “THE NIGHTMARE OF THE NATION”: SAM SHEPARD AND THE PARADOX OF AMERICAN IDENTITY Paul Seamus Madachy, Doctor of Philosophy, 2003 Dissertation directed by: Dr. Jackson Bryer Depar tment of English Sam Shepard’s plays depict a world in which his characters struggle with a paradox of life in America. Incapable of ever attaining any semblance of their perception of American identity, they also cannot ever define themselves outside of a national character. This paradox occurs, Shepard argues, because America —through its literature, culture, and very history —has promoted and perpetuated a sanitized version of historical events, one that celebrates a self -sufficient, pioneering spirit while de-emphasizing the violent and exclusionary reality of America’s past. The unreality of this image instills in Shepard’s characters an incessant escapist impulse that emerges as a distinctly American characteristic. Shepard’s plays and writings ex pose this American identity —represented by the strong, hardy figure of the farmer/pioneer/cowboy—as an illusion and suggests that any successful notion of identity must acknowledge the character -shaping influence of the past as well as admit to the reality of an American identity that is inherently violent and inaccessible to most Americans. As Shepard continues to write, his characters have evolved as they attempt to find new forms of American identity. Chapter One provides a detailed discussion of Shepard’s perception of American identity, identifying the source of the fundamental elements of that national character. Chapter Two elaborates on the escapist impulse that pervades Shepard’s work, examining the distinct patterns of escapism that Shepard’s ch aracters display. Chapter Three explores the shift in Shepard’s focus from escape to confrontation, wherein his characters start to realize the futility of denying individual and national heritage and are forced to confront the reality of American charact er by acknowledging its flaws and the enormous influence of the past. Chapter Four will examine the state of an America that has been stripped of its national myth. Shepard argues that the nation must discover an “essence of myth” that will help provide a collective identity for America. “THE NIGHTMARE OF THE NATION”: SAM SHEPARD AND THE PARADOX OF AMERICAN IDENTITY by Paul Seamus Madachy Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Marylan d, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2003 Advisory Committee: Dr. Jackson Bryer, Chair Dr. Donna Hamilton Dr. Peter Mallios Dr. Heather Nathans Professor Howard Norman ©Copyright by Paul Seamus Madachy 2003 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Chapter One: “The Cowboy Shape on the Floor”: The Construction of American Identity 19 The Super Cowboy Man: Shepard’s Conception of American Identity 20 What is an American?: The Construction of American Identity 26 American Identity in Literature 28 What’s Wrong with this Picture? 38 Presidents and B-Grade Westerns: The Influence of History and Popular Culture 44 Chapter Two: “The Nature of a Nation” 52 “Just Keep Yourself Movin’”: La Turista 56 “Looking for a Way Out”: Suicide in B-Flat 65 “I Need Landmarks”: Ge ography of a Horse Dreamer and the Reinscription of American Identity 72 “You Recognize Poison, Right?”: Curse of the Starving Class and American Failure 77 “Taken by the Dream”: Seduced and the American Escape Artist 89 Conclusion 96 Chapter Three: The Crisis of Confrontation 98 Turning Point: Buried Child 100 “The Ring of Truth”: Illusion Versus Reality in True West 112 ii Fool for Love and A Lie of the Mind 120 States of Shock 135 Conclusion 146 Chapter Four: “Lock on to an image or you’ll be blown to KINGDOM COME”: An Identity Void 150 “The Edge of Nowhere”: Simpatico’s Wa steland 151 Eyes for Consuela 167 The Death of the Father: The Late Henry Moss 178 “New Territory”: Shepard’s Exploration 188 The “Essence of Myth” 189 Exploration of a More Inclusive and Accessible Identity 202 Conclusion 214 The Ongoing Search for Identity 221 Appendix A: Shepard’s Major Works 224 Appendix B: Plot Synopses of Discussed Shepard Works 226 Appendix C: Works Cited 234 ii i “The Nightmare of the Nation”: Sam Shepard and the Paradox of American Identity Introduction Relaxation is the thing you seek. You spend thousands of hours and dollars and plane rides to get to a place for relaxation. To just disappear for a while. —Kent (La Turista , 1967) I don’t —I don’t want any trouble. I—I came down here just to get away for a while. —Henry (Eyes for Consuela , 1998) Sam Shepard created the characters of Kent and Henry more than 30 years apart, yet they exhibit numerous similarities. Out of a powerful sense of disillusionment, both men express a desire to leave America to rediscover something that they have lost. Both men wind up in Mexico, Shepard’s consistent escape destination for his characters. And both men echo each other’s language; unable to articulate the impulse that compels them to escape, they can only vaguely speak of the need to “disappear.” The similarities between the two characters (and the plays themselves) induced one critic to suggest that Eyes for Consuela was merely a “weary” reproduction of La Turista (Brantley, “Blinding” E12). And Shepard’s continued visitation of familiar territory compelled another to entitle his review of Shepard’s latest play, The Late Henry Moss (2000), “Don’t Play it Again” (Simon 73). After 30 years of drama that examines the state of America and Americans, has Shepard made no progress? Have his characters resisted development, coming no closer to understanding their own identity as Americans? Are critics such as Richard Zoglin 1 accurate when they argue that Shepard’s recent works seem “an exercise in nostalgia for his old, avant-garde self” (81)? While Sam Shepard continues to address many of the same themes in his works, particularly the individ ual’s search for identity within a larger, national context, his characters have undergone a distinct alteration in their relationship to that American identity. Shepard’s plays and writings expose American identity —often represented by Shepard in the str ong, hardy figures of the farmer, the pioneer and the cowboy—as an illusion, an incomplete image of American character. His works serve to strip this American identity of its veracity and potency, while opening the door to a new form of national character that can be attained by evoking a more unifying (if still undeveloped) concept of myth. Shepard argues that any successful notion of identity must acknowledge the illusory and historically inaccurate nature of his characters’ vision of American identity while also recognizing the ability of the past to influence character on both an individual and national level. Of course, it takes 30 years and dozens of plays for Shepard’s characters to evolve into their current—and still mutable —state (the still -activ e Shepard continues to produce plays that address these issues). Over the course of his career, Sam Shepard has exposed an America in which its citizens cannot ever attain the fundamental characteristics that constitute his perception of “the American,” specifically a strong connection to the land and an unwavering belief in the self -sufficiency of the individual to forge his own success. Shepard culls his perception of “the American” from a multitude of sources, including America’s history and culture, especially its pop culture. Shepard’s American is often entirely separated from any form of 2 achievable American identity, unable to obtain a sense of self that corresponds to the principles that he associates with the nation itself. Yet he is also unable to dissociate himself from that national character and find a sense of identity outside his status as an American. Thus a double bind emerges for his characters: their dissatisfaction with their current condition in life leads them to try to escape their misery and attempt to achieve a semblance of American identity, an identity which Shepard posits as ultimately unrealizable. This paradox of American identity consequently instills in Shepard’s characters an incessant escapist impulse, an impulse that Sh epard argues is a distinctly American characteristic. An examination of Shepard’s corpus, which now spans five decades (having produced work in every decade since the 1960s), reveals a distinct shift in the treatment of this American escapist impulse. 1 Shepard’s early characters engage in various attempts to either embrace or deny American identity, both exercises in futility; they participate in self -defeating and often self -destructive escapist behavior because they are unable to reconcile their perce ption of American identity with the reality of life in America. Beginning with Buried Child (1978), however, they begin to recognize the inescapability of their national heritage, so they attempt to confront their conception of national character by acknowledging its inherent falsehoods and recognizing the character -shaping effect of the past. In the process, they often expose the limiting nature of an identity that tends to deny access to most Americans, especially women and minorities. This crisis of confrontation reaches its peak in 1 While recognizing the importance of Shepard’s early one -act plays (and occasionally drawing upon them), this project focuses mainly on Shepard’s full -length plays and prose, beginning with 1967’s La Turista . Thi s project also offers only occasional references to Shepard’s now -extensive film career; 3 States of Shock , an early 1990s play in which Shepard directly calls for America to come to terms with the violent truth of its past and make room for a refashioned model of American identity.