Sam Shepard is considered as one of the modern American playwrights who combined the individual and the social in his plays to draw an image of a postmodern American society, and American family in particular by focusing on uniquely American aspects of culture. He is concerned with the individual in America rather than the institution. Shepard investigates, in almost all of his plays, the functions and dysfunctions of his characters, as well as the connections of individuals within the context of the family system and other social structures. The majority of his plays center on the struggle and conflict that occurs between father and son, husband and wife, and brother and brother as they strive for supremacy or for survival in a fra

Nineteenth century Gothic literature was deeply concerned with the threats against masculinity. Perhaps one of the most important changes that happened at that time was the emergence of the New Woman model which posed a great threat against masculinity and the male role in the Victorian society. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) portrays female characters who embody this transition in female roles from the domestic wife to the New Woman. This paper focuses on the female characters Mina Murray and Lucy Westenra, their roles in their society, and the different fates they face at the end of the novel, with special focus on Mina’s transformation to the model of the New Woman.