Rituals Theme Analysis

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 an almost Biblical washing away of the family’s sinful past.

During the first and second acts, Tilden brings into the house freshly picked corn and carrots that he says are growing out back, even though Dodge insists that nothing has grown there in years. This is representative of “harvest,” which is traditionally seen as a time of renewal (plants dying in order to provide new life through seeds and food). Tilden’s harvest and the rain that seems to cause it can be seen as the undercurrent of change for the family’s bizarre renewal that becomes the play’s climactic event.

The ritual of burial is another crucial part of the play—it’s even in the title. As power shifts between the men in the house, each of them is somehow symbolically “buried” to signify the death of their control. In the first act, after Tilden husks the corn he has found, he spreads the husks over Dodge’s sleeping body. This symbolic burial demonstrates that although still alive, Dodge has no control or power in the family anymore. Later on, Bradley buries Dodge in Shelly’s coat. By doing this, he exerts his dominance over Shelly by taking her protective outer layer, and over Dodge by burying him in the coat. Then, when Bradley’s prosthetic leg is taken from him and he loses all of his power, he buries himself in this same coat.

When Dodge does finally die, this burial ritual is repeated again when Vince, who now assumes the leadership role in the family, covers him in his blanket. With Dodge’s death, more harvest occurs. Halie finally notices that the fields behind the house are full of vegetables, while at the same time Tilden unearths the corpse of the buried child and brings it upstairs to Halie. As the family’s secret is quite literally brought out into the open, the crops grow for the first time in decades, allowing for the possibility of a hopeful future.