DISINTEGRATION AND DEVALUATION OF AMERICAN FAMILY: SAM SHEPARD’S BURIED CHILD

Sam Sheppard entered into the theatrical scenario of American family during 1960s.But he began as a high modernist involving him with bizarre experiments which were staged in tune with other. He launched his family plays by the mid seventies when the American family system had undergone an inversion of the traditional values. His own family life did not offer a congenial situation of an integrated family life. His father constantly absconded from the family responsibilities and worked as airman. Shepard had to fly away from his family but he was under the care of his lonely mother. One day, his mother with whom he did not pull on well, boozed anvil and killed himself in the road accident. This one-parent-family and his autobiographical experiences have been reflected in his realistic plays which were otherwise called as Family Plays. Sam Shepard was the recipient of the Pulitzer prize for the ‘Buried Child’ the fourth play on his realistic auvre. The present study, based on the status of family in the dramatic world of Sam Shepard, demands of an investigation into the quality of family in America during the 1960s.The play projects the animosity and turmoil in the relationship between the members of the family.