52 pages • 1 hour read
A Lie Of The Mind: A Play in Three Acts
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Themes
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of gender discrimination, mental illness, illness or death, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and domestic violence.
The Collapse of the American Family
After World War II, the United States entered a period of prosperity that redefined the American way of life. The status quo for the American middle class settled around the concept of a nuclear family with a masculine, provider father, a nurturing stay-at-home mother, and children that grew up to emulate the roles and attitudes of their parents. As Shepard shows in A Lie of the Mind, this illusion of American stability was a fantasy that disintegrated as time passed. Looking at the nationalist symbols in the play, as well as the attitudes of the characters, Shepard highlights how adherence to an unattainable family ideal allows Americans to dwell in nostalgia rather than focusing on how they can shape their own destinies, whether they conform to idealized norms or not. Jake’s planes, his father’s jacket and medals, Baylor’s insistence on hunting, and the flag-folding scene at the end of Act III all reinforce the methods by which these Americans cling to past glory and ignore their agency in the present.
Jake and his father exemplify the tenuous relationship between patriarchal authority, the military, and identity, as they each hide behind military symbols to avoid addressing the flaws in their lives.
