Buried Child Themes

At its core, Buried Child tells the story of the breakdown of a traditional, twentieth-century family unit. During the play, Shelly, the girlfriend of one of the characters and therefore an outsider to the family, compares the family farmhouse to a Norman Rockwell painting. Her first impression, then, is of a perfect, idyllic family living a perfect life. But Shepard’s goal in establishing such a “picture-perfect” family is to immediately and obviously subvert it…

Each of the members of the family in Buried Child is in some way a representation of a failed attempt at achieving different parts of the “American Dream”—prosperity, freedom, family, and happiness, usually represented by owning one’s home and raising a family. Dodge was once a prosperous farmer but his farm is now in utter disrepair, and according to him has not produced anything in years. Now basically immobile from illness, alcoholism, and old age…

Shepard plays with two ancient opposing rituals in Buried Child: harvest and burial. In the play, these rituals reflect changes in power dynamics between the characters, and foreshadow the instances of death and the possibilities for rebirth. Buried Child takes place over the course of a rainy day and into the next sunny morning. As the play progresses and new information about the family comes to light, the torrential rain can be seen as…

Shepard only portrays religion in a negative light in the play, but the kind of religiosity the characters illustrate is more about hypocrisy and self-righteousness than genuine belief. This kind of shallow religion is then presented as an entirely inadequate coping strategy for dealing with the grief and shame that befalls the family. During the last day of his life, Dodge slowly begins to give up on suppressing the guilt he feels for his sinful…