The Curse of Ancestry
The curse of the family, though not new to American drama, is well represented in True West. Each person is born into a family and as such takes on the burdens of the generations preceding him or her. Although Austin has tried very hard to escape the influence of his family, all of his attempts have failed. He has tried to get a sense of identity from his work and his accomplishments, but in the end they are all meaningless in relation to the identity formed for him in the family. Austin tries to deny that he is part of the family, but in the end cannot. In the end he is exactly like his brother and both of them are like his father—incapable of dealing with life in the regular world.