Sam Shepard: Buried Child, summary

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Sam Shepard: Buried Child Characters: • Dodge: in his seventies, a ranting, alcoholic grandfather with a quick wit. He is the patriarch of the clan, a boozy, cantankerous soul, forever lying about on a lice-infested couch in the most sinister-looking farmhouse in Illinois. • Halie: Dodge’s sanctimonious yet feisty wife, mid60s, who goes on drinking bouts with the local minister, an unkempt woman who is more than mildly flirtatious with him. • Tilden: their oldest son, an All-American footballer now a hulking semi-idiot; slow-witted but good-natured. He discovers acres of vegetables growing in the back yard. A lost soul, a disoriented man who has lost the will even to communicate. • Bradley: their next oldest son, an amputee, has lost one leg to a chain saw. He is a mean-spirited bully, a psychopath who has a fondness for cutting his father's hair when the old man is asleep • Vince: Tilden’s son, none of the family recognizes or remember him, a hip young jazz enthusiast • Shelly: Vince’s girlfriend, cannot comprehend the madness to which she is suddenly introduced. She is astonished -- and then angered -- at the lack of familial ties. • Father Dewis: a Protestant minister, who enjoys drinking sessions with Halie • Ansel: the dead child The only thing that binds this family together is a dark secret. Plot Summary: The setting is a squalid farm home occupied by a family filled with suppressed violence and an unease born of deep-seated unhappiness. Into their midst comes Vince, a grandson none of them recognizes or remembers, and his girlfriend, Shelly. When Vince brings his girlfriend, Shelly, home to meet his family, she is at first charmed by the "normal" looking farm house which she compares to a "Norman Rockwell cover or something"--that's before she actually meets his crazy family--his ranting, alcoholic grandparents (Dodge and Halie), who make
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