Buried Child-Sam Shepard

             "You don't wanna die do you?"... "but I just lost my voice."
             Buried Child, by Sam Shepard speaks to us about the impact of family secrets. A family in general is bonded by bloodlines. Yet relationships within the unit can be disturbed if a dark secret is held. The death of child is a tragedy all together, but when a member of the unit murders a child, the family is bound to fall apart. The members in this family, (Dodge, Halie, their sons Tilden and Bradley) fell apart because they tried to forget what happened. Dodge thought that if no one spoke about it then it would be forgotten. The fact is that nobody forgot, not even Halie. Oh, they can hold on to the secret and let it fester inside, but it doesn't just go away. Secrets are like a cancer. It grows and spreads through your body, eventually killing you.
             In the beginning of Act I, Shepard introduces us to a typical American family who seems fairly enough wholesome, but is far from it. In the opening act we see Halie as a potentially, nurturing wife. As she hears her husband coughing profusely she suggests that he take his medication. She also suggests that "it's the rain", which makes him sick like that. Doesn't it all seem wholesome? Well it would, except that Shepard places Halie and Dodge at such physical distance. Halie has to yell from the upstairs to Dodge who is downstairs sitting on the couch. They're trying to have a conversation but they can't hear each other clearly. I can see that the distance is not just physical, but emotional. When Halie mentions that she's going downstairs to see him, he yells "don't come down!" And Halie invites Dodge to the upstairs. She yells down to him, " you should see it coming down up here." ... " What's it like down there?" Again this shows the distance between Halie and Dodge. You see
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Buried Child-Sam Shepard. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 11:11, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/88898.html