Take away the smashed typewriters, the beer bath, the burning pages, and those yapping coyotes, and you have a pretty straightforward family drama when it comes to True West. This is the story of two brothers dealing with their past, the failures of their parents, and their own envy toward each other.
To call this a "dysfunctional family" would rank pretty high on the understatement list. These guys aren't just a couple of therapy sessions away from getting healthy. Throughout the course of the play, they destroy virtually everything around them, and they just about kill each other. However, in a bizarre way (because Austin and Lee are nothing if not bizarre), their battle brings them closer together than they ever have been in their lives. What can you say, we guess opposites really do attract.
Questions About Family
- Austin mocks Saul (not to his face) for thinking that the brothers are "the same person" (2.7.29). Is it possible that Saul is right to think that even before the end of the play?
- What does Mom's desire to meet Picasso say about her? Does this, in some way, provide insight into Austin and Lee's upbringing?
- Do you think Lee is truly jealous of Austin's situation? What lines in the text can be used to support this theory?
- What role does Austin and Lee's father play in their lives?
Chew on This
Austin and Lee are simply two parts of the same person. One cannot exist without the other.
The men in the family see the desert not necessarily as a place to be free from society, but to be free from the women in their lives.