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Shepard recognizes modern America as a waste land, and thinks the American dreams, protestantism, and western mythology are no longer the ideals for Americans. He pursues to create new American cultural mythology through various activities relating as movies and theatres. Shepard shows that traditional American mythology collapsed entirely through characters in his plays. He makes his characters enact various roles to pursue new mythology. Shepard’s characters from accepted American mythology are ruined by family collapse, disbelief in religion, and distaste of commercialism, which is the core matters of Shepard’s plays. Shepard’s characters surrounded with many anxieties and inauthencities are people who cannot find their appropriate roles and identities. They pursue their identities struggling with many American culture icons affected by media. They try to defend themselves from past burdens and anxieties by finding essential origins to pursue their authentic identities. They are compelled to be the consistent changing existences by their dreams, visions, and fears. They suffer from psychological splits. With the hope that Shepard and his characters may find the authentic identities substituted for the sterile ideals of modern American culture, Shepard continue to pursue the impossible.
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