Shepard's Desolate Deserts: The Place Where Finitude Meets Revival

This article addresses the literary symbolism of the desert landscape in combination with an ecocritical perspective and subsequently proceeds to analyze selected plays by Sam Shepard, focusing on the significance of the desert landscape, which has a profound impact on the psyches of his characters. Sam Shepard, as an author of American myths, adds an ancient and mystical quality to his desert environment, which intricately contributes to the development of the protagonists’ identities. The Western viewpoint of the desert as a place of danger and death is compared and contrasted with the spiritual potential of this arid land.