An Archetypal Interpretation Of Buried Child Under The Theme Of Death And Rebirth

As an icon of American mass culture, Sam Shepard switches his social rolessmoothly from an unruly rock star to a gentle romantic poet, from a talentedtelevision and film director to a charismatic Hollywood superstar. Most remarkably,he has written a series of short stories, essays, memoirs and plays with high quality,and he has been regarded as a typical dramatist shinning in the American theatricalcircle. His works have been acclaimed by the professional critics, as well as theordinary readers, for his creative skills and distinctive artistry. During nearly fivedecades, with50-plus dramatic products, Shepard has become a significant giant inAmerican theatre after Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller.For the aim to present the real life on stage, Shepard blends his own family lifeinto the plays taking western American as the story background. Since Socrates,literature and arts have been considered the products of mimesis; this idea alsopenetrates into and finds its expression in the circle of literary theories. Archetypalcriticism is such a case. Shepard takes family plays into his drama composition, notonly for the autobiographical sake, but also following the themes of Greek tragedies,with motifs recurring in Greek mythologies or Biblical stories, as well as thosearchetypal narrative patterns, and expressing the serious themes. There are manyarchetypes relating to these two cultural origins in Shepard’s plays, and his Pulitzerwinner play Buried Child serves as a good example.This thesis attempts to analyze Buried Child under the archetypal theme of deathand rebirth. The main body is divided into four parts which successively interpret thearchetypal theme, and the archetypal characters, images and rituals in this play.Chapter one is a brief introduction to Archetypal Criticism and the theme of deathand rebirth, as well as Shepard’s complex of applying archetypes into playwriting.In Buried Child, there are many Archetypal employments, such as the crops in thebackyard, the buried child, rain and flood, son’s arrogation toward their father andfather’s vigilance for his statue in the family, etc. Chapter Two interprets the archetypal characters in Buried Child. Dodge thepatriarchic father is a mean and old man; his wife Hailey flirts with a priest to get hissupporting of setting a statue for her dead son; their elder son Tilden used to be avigorous young man but now nearly turns into an idiot, and his brother Bradley losthis left leg in an accident; the grandson Vince is a young musician, coming home withhis girlfriend Shelley but encounters everybody’s denial. With absurdity andemptiness, all of them are the displacement of archetypal characters from myths orclassical works, such as the rebellious son, the patriarchal father, the unfaithful wife,and the scapegoat sacrificed for others’ sin, etc.Chapter Three delves into the archetypal images under the theme of death andrebirth. The continuing rain which seems to submerge everything in the play is thedisplacement from the Biblical story of Noah’s Ark. The rain here means God’spunishment to the sinful family. Tilden carries corns and other foods from thebackyard where both Dodge and Halie deny the existence of corns. So the corn in theplay is a symbol of undeniable life force. In the end of the play, with Dodge’s deathand Vince’s inheriting of the house, Haile admits the existence of corns whichmanifests that the whole family has experienced a cycle of death and rebirth.Chapter Four researches the archetypal rituals, that is, ritual of “killing the Kingand King’s rebirth”, and ritual of Adultness. Primitive peoples believed that the cycleof life and death actually is the connection of two archetypal rituals, namely, the ritualof Death and Resurrection and the ritual of Adultness. In Buried Child, arrogationstoward the patriarchal father are displacement of the death ritual of the divine king;the succession is the ritual of new king’s adultness and the old king’s resurrection.The last part brings the thesis to a conclusion. Though men can live only oncephysically, they can start over spiritually through the process of insight andexperience from the dramatic rituals. It is similar to plants, which wither and sproutwith the annual cycle of the seasons.