Authorization and Subversion of Myth in Shepard's Buried Child

Authorization and Subversion of Myth in Shepard's Buried Child TUCKER ORBISON Some confusion has resulted from recent views on how Sam Shepard uses myth in Buried Child. Critics have asserted that two myths form the sub-text of the play: the vegetation myth of the Corn King and the legend of the Holy Grail. Opinion differs, however, on how Shepard treats these patterns. Some suggest that Shepard accepts these myths uncritically; others ,see the play's dramatic structure as subverting them. The argument here holds that Shepard authorizes the validity of the first and subverts the second. The vision of Buried Child is characterized by a bitter irony: while the natural wo~ld is renewed, the human world is not. As critics have explained, Shepard uses two related myths that devolve from ancient fertility rituals, both focusing on the pattern of death-rebirth. The first derives from Fraser's The Golden Bough. I The corn king's health guarantees the wellbeing of the tribe and the fecundity of the land. When he grows old and ill, the crops die and the land becomes moribund. Before this event, therefore, he must be ritually put to death so that the king's spirit may be transmitted to younger and more effective hands. Shepard adumbrates this myth in his own way by establishing Dodge as the dying "king" of his family and his land. Because his powers are failing, the land has become barren, but no worthy successor has arrived to take over. Into this situation comes Vince, Dodge's grandson. In Act Three Dodge recognizes Vince as a deserving inheritor and wills him the farm. In a presumed attempt to fulfil his new role, Vince vows to restore the farm. That this ritual process incarnates magical power is signified by the mysterious revitalization of the land. A number of commentators believe that this pattern forms the subtext of Buried Child. Thomas Nash, for example, sees the playas "a modem version of the central theme of Western mythology, the death and rebirth of the Corn King.,,2 The rain of Act One prepares "the land for a miraculous rebirth" (204), the agent of which is Dodge's grandson Vince, who arrives to fill the Modern Drama, 37 (1994) 509 510 TUCKER ORBISON "heroic vacuum" (206). Because Vince is "the reincarnation of the buried child" (205), the last scene constitutes a rebirth ritual, in which Vince becomes the resurrected Com Spirit. Though one may quarrel with details of this reading, the miracle has in fact taken place. Tilden actually does bring produce on stage, and at the end Halie is astounded to see the field of com. It would appear, then, that Shepard grants authority to the main fact of the myth; the dying land is tied to the dying king and in some unknown way the land returns to life. Even though Putzell and Westfall believe that all the "mythic patterns" in the play "have been twisted to prevent regeneration,"3 Shepard appears to accept the validity of this mystery, in its main outline if not in all details. Shepard once wrote, "I feel that language is a veil hiding demons and angels which the characters are always out of touch with. Their quest in the· play is the same as ours in life - to find those forces, to meet them face to face and end the mystery."4 The pattern Shepard appears to summarize concerns the character's search for the unconscious archetypes within the self; the goal is to bring them to consciousness. Shepard does not say that the mystery will be solved, only that the character attempts to clarify what has been hidden and to confront it. Now if we consider Dodge as an impotent king who presides over a dead land, Shepard's statement encourages us to go further. Vince becomes the quester who returns home in an unconscious effort to discover a hidden part of himself. This rough plot conforms to the pattern found in the second myth Shepard employs, the quest for the Grail. Chretien de Troyes' Perceval, or the Story of the Grail provides a convenient example. I do not suggest that Shepard has read...