Sam Shepard’sBuried Child“The disintegration of American Dream”

Abstract

Disintegration of American dream prevails among peoplein American societies during twentieth century. Concept of American Dream led society to flourish in every field. American Dream contains elements of family and financial success. Contemporary American society is delved into paucity of spirituality and morality. Family members also cannot co-operate among themselves and family norms and values have been crushed. The past ideal of innocence and simplicity as well as predictability of life was replaced by the prevailing complexity, disillusionment and disorder. Similarly the catastrophic world war was another dominant factor that brought about change in American society. American farmers experienced a serious crisis due to the sudden change of price drop of major crops. Farm life is very hard due to weather.Cultural faith and ideas are failed to cope with the problem of modern American society. This study mostly seeks the comical and insightful presentation of the disintegrating American Dream in ‘Buried child’. Dramatist tries to show situation of disintegration of the American Dream by showing the characters' failure to perform their perspective roles and dark secrets of family. It is a vision of a dysfunctional family that is transformed into a symbol of loss of innocence.