Postmodern Sense of Doom in the Hyperreal World of Sam Shepard\u27s States of Shockand Kicking a Dead Horse

Sam Shepard is one of the most prolific, influential, and celebrated playwrights that the United States has produced in contemporary era. In his plays, America is complete with traditional and mythical symbols. He uses these emblems in order to subvert their meanings and manifest the discrepancies between characters’ living in the West and the realities they confront. In his later plays, including States of Shock, and Kicking a Dead Horse, Sam Shepard reflects on the traditional meanings of myth and their erasure in the postmodern societies. Furthermore, the postmodern universe in these three plays is bombarded with representation and distortions of reality and hyperreality. The characters enter in simulations of reality after accepting the fact that the true reality doesn’t exist. As a matter of fact, myths are not real; they are simulations of the past myths. Media with its glamorous and captivating power is one of the most influential medium in constructing the hyper real