THEA 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Manifest Destiny
18 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Summary
Major Characters:
●Austin- represents the “New West”, aspiring screenwriter, secure with his place in
the world, humble, lives a simple life, throughout the play he starts to become
more and more like Lee, at the end he is a drunken thief who obsesses over
moving to the desert with Lee, and almost kills Lee by strangling him with a
phone cord
●Lee- represents the “Old West”, at the beginning he is a drunken thief who is
prone to violence, becomes more and more like Austin as the play progresses,
comedic center of the play,
●Saul Kimmer- Hollywood producer, used as a plot device, manipulative, slick,
and tells everyone what they want to hear
●Old Man- never appears on stage but has a powerful influence, believed to live in
the desert, Austin and Lee constantly fight over him, and Lee is more
sympathetic towards him than Austin
●Mom- in Alaska for majority of the play, Austin and Lee come to watch her house
while she is gone
Themes:
●Ancestry can be a curse- Austin tries to escape the influence of his family but in
the end he realizes that he is just like his father and brother
●Old West vs. New West- Austin represents the suburban New West and Lee
represents the chaotic desert of the Old West, the desert is the stronger force
(wild terrain over takes the kitchen), confines of the suburbs don’t allow people to
form an identity
●Art as a Business vs. as an Ideal- in the beginning Lee doesn’t believe art is a
way to make a living, Shepard asks how can one endeavor to create art then be
paid for it
●Fallibility of the American Dream- Americans have been taught to want/ value the
wrong things, Austin realizes that his american dream is wrong, and what is right
is to form an identity on your own terms
Symbols:
●Austin and Lee= opposite extremes of the creative artist
○Lee= creativity and impulse (id)
○Austin= superego, structure, delayed gratification
●Houseplants= order and structure that pervade the suburbs of the New West
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
