A Lie Of The Mind: A Play in Three Acts

The ending of A Lie of the Mind highlights all the issues that each character has struggled with throughout the play, culminating in an ending in which only the characters who have decided to embrace their delusions are happy. Jake, convinced he is fulfilling his role as a man, leaves the situation, while Mike, convinced he cannot help his family, leaves, as well. Beth fully commits to being in love with Frankie while Meg plans their wedding and renews her love for Baylor. Baylor masks his self-doubt with nationalism and renews his love for Meg. Sally and Lorraine decide to flee to Ireland, seeking the roots of their family and abandoning the issues and people in their American family. Only Frankie, who is incapacitated by his infected leg wound, sees how everyone is losing touch with reality, and he ends the play begging Jake to return. The message at the end of the play is that the characters must either leave or live inside the illusion of comfort and prosperity. This ending highlights The Fragmentation of Memory and Identity and is foreshadowed by the constant motif of forgetting details from the past, which likewise implies that the characters, other than Frankie, will soon forget the events of the play as well. In the final lines, Meg sees Lorraine and Sally’s fire in the snow, connecting the two families with a single image of burning the past and implying that the lapses in characters’ memories are another form of discarding events and details that do not fit their desired narrative.

A critical detail in unraveling Shepard’s message regarding The Collapse of the American Family is the three uses of the American flag in Act III. Initially, Jake uses the flag for protection, but Mike quickly strips him of the flag and uses it to control Jake. In the stage directions, Shepard notes: “Jake emerges into the light, walking on his knees straight toward the audience with the American lag between his teeth and stretched taut on either side of his head, like a set of driving reins for a draft horse” (88), conjuring an image of servitude and imprisonment, while: “Mike walks along, clucking to Jake like a horse and shaking the ‘reins’ now and then” (88). In this moment, the flag represents the expectations placed on American men, in which Mike must defend his sister, and Jake must take accountability for his actions—not by turning himself into law enforcement, but by restoring his marriage. 

These expectations are inherent in the theme of The Role of Gender in Dysfunctional Relationships, as well, as Mike is essentially dominating Jake as a way to break down his fragile masculinity, while simultaneously forcing Jake to fulfill his responsibility in his marriage. The tightly pulled American flag shows the tension between the two characters as they play out the struggle between independence and responsibility. In the end, Mike’s attempt fails, but it strengthens the connection between Jake and his father, who likewise abandoned his wife and family. Just as Jake’s father had a vague connection to the military and nationalism, he steps away from his wife, trading the flag for a blanket, symbolizing his decision to leave Beth, and the ideal of an American marriage, behind.

The final use of the flag is as a distraction, as Baylor enlists Meg’s assistance in folding the flag. Though the conflict between Mike, Jake, Frankie, and Beth continues around them, Baylor holds Meg’s attention on the flag, and they celebrate when it is folded. However, much like Baylor’s response regarding deer hunting as a tradition, he cannot explain to Meg why they need to fold the flag a specific way, saying: “I don’t know. Just tradition I guess. That’s the way I was taught. Funny how things come back to ya’ after all those years” (94). The flag, like deer hunting, is just part of what Baylor “was taught,” presumably by his parents and their parents before them. The status quo of Baylor’s life revolves around traditions for which he cannot name the meaning. The flag folding sequence provides a distinct comfort to Meg and Baylor, who do not want to acknowledge the disruption of Beth, Jake, Mike, and Frankie’s argument, and their celebration is notably out of place in this scene. 

Afterward, Baylor kisses Meg, who says it has been 20 years since he last kissed her. Though Baylor denies it, this span of time indicates how long they have been detached both from each other and from the comfort of the status quo. The flag folding emphasizes how focusing on an abstract ideal keeps them from recognizing the problems in their lives. As the play ends, Baylor and Meg perform the roles of happy, married adults, even though it is only a façade to avoid facing their dysfunction.

Though Sally and Lorraine are separated from the major action of Act III, the conclusion of their story follows the same pattern as the others. They both flee their lives rather than trying to maintain the delusion of a successful, American family. However, in Lorraine’s case, this flight is dependent on a new delusion: the assumption of an alternative, Irish family. Sally asks: “You mean we’re just gonna’ run away and let it burn?” (88), hesitating at the thought of renouncing any ties to their own family. Sally’s phrasing is critical to the conclusion of Lorraine and Sally’s story, as they are essentially fleeing the dysfunction in their household and burning it in the hope of destroying whatever bad energy caused their problems. They do not realize that they, too, are part of these problems, which will follow them anywhere. As Meg sees the burning bucket in a vision at the end of the play, the idea of burning everything and fleeing further contrasts the illusion of happiness that she and Baylor have chosen.