Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Study Guide for Sam Shepard's "Curse of the Starving Class"
    A Study Guide for Sam Shepard's "Curse of the Starving Class"
    A Study Guide for Sam Shepard's "Curse of the Starving Class"
    Ebook37 pages26 minutes

    A Study Guide for Sam Shepard's "Curse of the Starving Class"

    By Gale and Cengage

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Sam Shepard's "Curse of the Starving Class," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama For Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama For Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateAug 3, 2016
    ISBN9781535821346
    A Study Guide for Sam Shepard's "Curse of the Starving Class"

    Read more from Gale

    Related to A Study Guide for Sam Shepard's "Curse of the Starving Class"

    Related ebooks

    Literary Criticism For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Study Guide for Sam Shepard's "Curse of the Starving Class"

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Sam Shepard's "Curse of the Starving Class" - Gale

      3

      Curse of the Starving Class

      Sam Shepard

      1977

      Introduction

      Sam Shepard’s Curse of the Starving Class at first reading is a very strange play. The playwright seems not to have been able to decide whether he wanted to write a realistic social protest play or a symbolic drama, and the characters also are at times little more than stock types from gangster movies. But a closer look at this play reveals that it is a very sophisticated drama that seeks to link deep archetypal themes of human suffering and fate to very specific and contemporary political and social issues. The family whose plight is dramatized are indeed beset by a curse about which they can do nothing, but Shepard refuses to specify what that curse is. The play is clearly a symbolic drama, but it is no allegory; the symbols are used more for their resonance and imagistic power than for any one-to-one correspondence with the themes of the play. The play is fragmented, decentered, at times incoherent. Parts of it seem lifted from B-grade movies; other parts seem like Greek tragedy barely altered. In this pastiche lies the play’s power.

      Author Biography

      One of the most famous playwrights in contemporary America, Sam Shepard’s fame comes in part from what some critics have called a self-made myth. Shepard is tall, dark, and handsome; he is rough and rugged; he is a brilliant and successful writer and actor who has been romantically linked with a glamorous movie star for years. After many years of struggle in the theatre, Shepard finally gained a great deal of note for his work in films in the 1980s, and the American public at large became familiar with this man who seems to have been born already on his way to being an American icon.

      Shepard’s family background and upbringing place him solidly in the narrative of the American artist of modest circumstances who completely remakes himself. Shepard was born Sam Shepard Rogers VII on November 5, 1943, at Fort Sheridan, a military base, in Illinois. Shepard’s family lived on army bases until 1955, when they finally settled in Southern California. In Duarte, Shepard worked on the family’s avocado farm and raised ranch animals (one year raising the

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1