Buried Child

Buried Child Summary | Act 1 Summary

The setting of this three-act play is a farmhouse in Illinois, and all scenes are played out in the living room with a screened porch visible in the background. Dodge, who is the owner, farmer of the land, the husband, and father of the family who lives there, is on stage during the entire play. Dodge is a drunken, ill, argumentative, old man who has a blanket that seems to suggest a child's security blanket. His body is usually covered with it, but sometimes, when he is trying to avoid what is going on, he covers his head with it.

Halie, his wife, does not appear right away, but her voice is heard from the upper floor where she spends most of her time. Halie expresses concern for Dodge and, on the surface, seems to be a caretaker, urging her husband to take his medicine when he coughs. Halie voices religious piety and self-righteousness. When Dodge tells her he does not enjoy anything, she responds, "It's no wonder people have turned their backs on Jesus!" and "It's no wonder the messengers of God's word are shouting louder now than ever before." Then she complains that Dodge has become "an evil, spiteful, vengeful man."

There are sexual undertones in the exchanges between Dodge and his wife. Halie speaks of an old boyfriend who was a 'breeder' of race horses. Dodge comments: "I bet he taught you a thing or two, huh? Gave you a good turn around the old stable!" And later, "And he never laid a finger on you, I suppose? This gentleman breeder-man."

The reader soon learns, however, that she is anything but a caretaking wife. Halie is carrying on an affair with the minister of her church, Father Dewis, and she dresses to meet him and brings him home the next day, both of them slightly inebriated. The minister, for his part, is more caricature than real and is ineffective at solving any of the problems of this highly dysfunctional family. Halie insists that she meets with him to talk about a monument for their son, Ansel, who is dead. Halie believes that Ansel was the most promising of their sons and would have achieved greatness; instead, he died in a motel room on his honeymoon. Halie also complains that he would still be alive if he had not married into the Catholics, whom she labels the Mob. Remembering the wedding, she says, "I think even the priest was wearing a pistol. When he gave her the ring, I knew he was a dead man. . . . But then it was the honeymoon that killed him. I knew he'd never come back from that honeymoon."

Tilden, one of Dodge and Halie's sons, who had been All-American halfback, has returned home from living in New Mexico. Tilden is somehow disabled, probably emotionally, and is unable to earn a living. When the play begins, Tilden is bringing in ears of corn from "out back" and husking it on the living room floor, even though Dodge insists that those fields have not been planted for thirty years. Halie tells Dodge, "You've gotta watch out for him. It's our responsibility. He can't look after himself anymore, so we have to do it. Nobody else will do it. We can't just send him away somewhere. If we had lots of money we could send him away. But we don't."

Bradley, their other son, has a wooden leg, because he chopped his leg off, at some time or another, with a chain saw. Bradley comes to the house from time to time to brutally shave his father's head, leaving it gashed and bleeding. Life has made him vicious. Bradley tries to assert his role as the one in charge of the family, but no one takes him seriously. Halie tells Tilden he must get the corn husks cleaned up before Bradley comes. He's "going to be very upset when he sees it," she says. "He doesn't like to see the house in disarray." Halie says that she had expected Tilden to take care of Bradley, since Tilden was the oldest. "I had no idea in the world that Tilden would be so much trouble," Halie says.

Veiled allusions are made to some kind of secret in the back yard. Halie tells Dodge not to let Tilden go out in the back yard anymore. "I don't want him back there in the rain," she says, "He's got no business out there." Dodge and Tilden discuss knowing about "it." "Why'd you tell her it was your flesh and blood?" Tilden asks. Dodge tries to keep him from going into the back yard: "Don't go outside. There's nothing out there. Never has been. It's empty."