Fool For Love: Key Facts

Full title Fool For Love

Author Sam Shepard

Type of work Play

Genre One Act

Language English

Time and place written Early 1980s, London

Date of first publication 1983

Publisher City Lights Books

Narrator None

Point of view Not applicable (drama)

Tone Surreal; larger than life

Tense Not applicable (drama)

Settings (times) Somewhere on the edge of the Mojave Desert, early 1980s

Setting (place) May's motel room

Protagonists May and Eddie

Major conflict Eddie returns to May, his on-again, off-again lover, whom he left alone in a trailer. May will not take Eddie back because she suspect she is having an affair with a woman they call the Countess; Eddie is mad at May for not appreciating how far he came to see her and for not taking him back into her affection; Eddie becomes jealous of her date with a new man named Martin

Rising Actions Eddie tells Martin that he and May are not cousins; Eddie tells Martin that he and May fooled around in high school. Eddie tells Martin a story about himself and the Old Man revealing that the Old Man is his father

Climax Eddie reveals that he and May found out that they are siblings after they became teenage lovers and that the Old Man is their father

Falling Action In Act Four May tells her version of Eddie's story in which she reveals her mother's pain in knowing the Old Man had two women; She reveals that Eddie's mother killed herself. The Old Man is surprised and devastated.

Themes A Cycle of Abandonment and Returning Co-dependence; Love as Desire and Repulsion

Motifs Power struggle; Masculinity; Memory and Point of View

Symbols Barbara Mandrell; Mercedes Benz; Fire

Foreshadowing May tells Eddie early on in the play that she will get him when he least expects it and soon after saying this she kisses him and then knees him in the groin. Eddie tells May that they are connected and that their connection was decided along time ago. This foreshadows the knowledge of their blood relation being revealed later in the play.

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