Patriarchal Pathology: The Case of Sam Shepard’s Buried Child and Mahesh Dattani’s Where There’s a Will.

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Sam Shepard and Mahesh Dattani belong to different countries and time span. They come from different social, ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Sam Shepard belongs to the cream of the crop of 20th century American dramatists. He was involved with New York's Off-Off Broadway Theater - the new experimental theaters that sprung up in church halls, lofts, basements and cafes after the Off-Broadway theater had become expensive. He was closely allied with Theater Genesis-an Off-Off Broadway venue based at St.Mark’s in the Bowery, an Episcopalian church in the East Village at 2nd Avenue and 10th Street. Mahesh Dattani is a well known cotemporary Indian-English playwright, the first Indian playwright writing in English to be awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award. Sam Shepard explores the complicated relationships within American families. In order to ensure the myth of the American Dream, however unattainable, family life is seen by playwrights like Sam Shepard to pay the price. The family is breaking up from within by their adherence to public values. Although his plays explore deeply the American psyche and investigate the cultural heritage of their nation, yet they have a mainstream plea to people all over the world. Mahesh Dattani writes on the burning issues that beset the post-independence Indian society, whether it is communal discord, politics and crime, growing homosexuality or the gender bias. He uses stage to condemn many of the drawbacks prevailing in society. His plays depict marginalized groups of society, people who are considered misfits in a society where stereotyped attitudes and notions reign supreme. His plays have varied content and varied appeal. The works of Sam Shepard and Mahesh Dattani thus r... ... middle of paper ... ...Print. Shepard, Sam.Buried Child.Vintage Publications,1979.Print. Secondary Source Deeba,Farha.Prioritizing the invisible:A Study of the Select plays of Mahesh Dattani.Diss.University of Kashmir,2013. Mathisen,Kari.What’s Happened to this Family Anyway? The Disintegration of the American Family in Selected Plays by O’Neill,Miller,and Shepard.MA thesis. University of Troms,2009. Ranjan,Mukesh. “Mahesh Dattani’s Where There’s a Will: Exorcising the Patriarchal Code”.The Dramatic World of Mahesh Dattani-A Critical Exploration.Ed.Amar Nath Suri.Sarup Book Publishers,2009.136-144.Print. Shepard, Sam. Buried Child.In Sam Shepard:Plays,Vol.2.London:Faber and Faber,1997.Print. The Cambridge Companion to Sam Shepard. Ed.Mathew Roundane.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2002.Print.

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