Sam ShepardSam Shepard is a contemporary American playwright and actor whose plays deal with modern social issues. He was influenced by Beat Generation writers such as Allen Ginsberg who rebelled against a society of economic affluence and social conformity after World War II. Insatiable consumerism became a central feature of postwar life, "driven by the mass media, advertising, and generous loan terms" ("Sam Shepard"). From this atmosphere the Beat Writers came forward to declare their alienation from what they saw as the "creed of suburban conformity in favor of what Ginsberg called 'love's lost America'" ("Sam Shepard"). It was from this generation of writers that Shepard drew inspiration to address the themes of alienation from society, loss of identity, and deterioration of the family structure. The themes explored by Shepard can be described as "the image of America torn between idealistic values ​​and the painful realities of a parking lot frontier" ("Sam Shepard"). In other words, progress and change are destroying America's collective values ​​as the former replaces the latter. Having grown up in the 1950s and 1960s, a time of social metamorphosis, Shepard must have observed firsthand that the family of popular culture was very different from the changing face of society's real-life family, whose members strive for identity and connection . While television presented an idealization of suburban family life, reality suggested otherwise. Shepard is known for his oblique plots, slightly mysterious characters, and use of surreal elements with popular culture imagery ("Sam Shepard"). Most of his plays deal with the betrayal of the American dream, the search for... middle of paper... articulate enough to piece his thoughts together, and Austin doesn't have the adventurous spirit to survive in the desert. Therefore, they realize that their identities are not found in each other. The characters in each of these plays are searching for identity and connection, which Shepard recognizes as true in modern American families. As they assert themselves, the result is family tension, and the dream of the Brady Bunch is just that: a dream. Works Cited Gilman, Richard. Sam Shepard: Seven Comedies. Introduction. New York: Bantam Books, 1981. xi-xxvii."Sam Shepard." Microsoft Encarta 99 Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation. 1993-1998.Shepard, Sam. Sam Shepard: Seven Comedies. New York: Bantam Books, 1981.Williams, Megan. "Nowhere Man and the Twentieth-Century Cowboy: Images of Identity and American History in Sam Shepard's True West." Modern drama. 40 (Spring 1997): 57-73.