SAM SHEPARD′S
BURIED CHILD

by

Alexandra Mohr

2000

CONTENTS

Introduction: p. 3-4

The Autobiographic in Buried Child and other plays: p. 4-7

The Father-Son Conflict: p. 8-10

The Buried Child: p. 10-17

Conclusion: p. 17

Bibliography: p. 18

INTRODUCTION

Sam Shepard is known as one of the most accomplished playwrights in the United States, he also gained celebrity as an actor in a couple of American movies.
He has written more than 45 plays, different screenplays, and has received 11 Obie Awards, besides a Golden Palm Award and an Oscar nomination.
For the 1979 published play Buried Child he received the Pulitzer Price in the same year. This play belongs to Shepard′s trilogy of family dramas, and is probably the one which marks the change of direction in his career to a more realistic style.
Critics do recognize a lot of differences compared to older plays, which are seen as surrealistic plays, or plays, which critics catogorize as parts of the Theatre of Absurd, like, for example, Fool for Love.
But reading Buried Child, the reader quickly realizes that the play may have started as a realistic play, but it turns out to be totally different. Step by step, Shepard creates a sarcastic play, which also could be seen as part of the Theatre of Absurd.
In a brilliant way, he combines the actual with the fictional. When the audience just starts to feel comfortable with the play, the plot changes immediately and disappoints their great expectations.
First, it will be helpful to give a short introduction to Buried Child:
The play is about a farmers family living near Illinois, in the middle of nowhere. On the surface the family seems to be normal, maybe just a bit frustrated. But in the background appears to be a secret, which connects the family in a very strange way, also every single member of the family tries to keep this secret.
The estranged son Vince, who left his home six years ago shows up at his grandparents′ place for a surprise visit. He is accompanied by his girlfriend Shelly, who is, like him, heavily disturbed by the strange behaviour of her boyfriend`s family.
Where as Vince seems to surrender to unreveal the secret of his family, and probably is trying to find his new place in the family hierarchy, Shelly will not give up and tries to get behind the secret.
The American Repertory Theatre, in the program notes for their 1996 production of "Buried Child", stated:

"No native dramatist since Eugene O′Neill has probed so deeply the core of American pop mythology and set it on a collision course with the realities of American life. Buried Child explores the inner tensions of a rural existence, father-son relationships, and the place women hold in an increasingly ambiguous domestic atmosphere. Starkly poetic, humorous, and mysterious, Buried Child is a vision of a dysfunctional family transformed into a symbol of America′s loss of innocence."

The following essay is divided into three main parts. The first part will give an idea of Shepard′s use of autobiographical facts, the second focuses on the father-son conflict we often find in his plays. The last part ′The Buried Child′ will be a direct interpretation of the text.


1. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHIC IN BURIED CHILD AND OTHER PLAYS

As mentioned before, Buried Child belongs to Shepard′s trilogy of family-dramas, like Curse of the Starving Class (1977) and True West (1980). They are all very powerful dramas and told to be of an autobiographical nature.
Maybe, because Shepard seems to reveal just a few facts of his private life, critics recognize even more the autobiographic in his plays.

"Casting Shepard as a figure who is as wary of the media as J.D. Salinger may be somewhat hyperbolic, but the sense that Shepard is guarded in interviews is not unfounded. ′I don′t want certain aspects [of myself] to be public′, he told Kevin Sessums. ′They are not for public consumption. They′re private, they belong to me, they don′t belong to everybody and I refuse to let them out there.′..."

For example the farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, which Shepard uses for a lot of settings, reminds some critics of his grandparents′ home near Chicago, which he discribes in Motel Chronicles, a so-called recollection of his own life.

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