Sam Shepard's Buried Child International

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature E-ISSN: 2200-3592 & P-ISSN: 2200-3452 www.ijalel.aiac.org.au The Offstage Character in Modern American Drama: Sam Shepard’s Buried Child Najim Abdullah Hammood1, Samer Dhahir Mahmood2*, Mohamed Ramadhan Hashim3 1-3Ministry of Education , Al Anbar, Iraq Corresponding Author: Samer Dhahir Mahmood, E-mail: [email protected] ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history This paper highlights and explains the impact of the offstage character, which is widely prevalent Received: March 20, 2020 in the American drama, on the onstage characters and the audience as well. In the 20th century, Accepted: May 26, 2020 American drama is marked by the loss and absence which depict the dark side of American society Published: July 31, 2020 because of the ramifications of the two World Wars. These consequences are the major reasons Volume: 9 Issue: 4 behind man’s hopelessness, alienation and failure. With the great development in the field of Advance access: July 2020 psychology, at the hand of Sigmund Schlomo Freud in the 19th century, which paved the path for the writers to deeply burrow in the psychological issues that man suffers from in the modern and postmodern era. Consequently, writers, like Shepard, try to examine the hidden issues of their Conflicts of interest: None characters by dint of the offstage character in the context of a family that represents the society. Funding: None These unseen characters have influential roles including; catalyst roles and the proximate cause which uncover the cause of the obliteration of American family members in the darkness of their sin. This paper also examines; the role played by the absent character in dealing with the critical issues of American society, such as the incestuous issues and the failure of the American dream. Key words: Sam Shepard. Offstage Character. American Drama. Buried Child. American Dream. INTRODUCTION The phenomenon of absent characters has been robustly The offstage character, also known as unseen character, is a used in modern American drama in order to draw the atten- character that is physically invisible from the stage. S/He is tion of the viewers as well as readers to the main role of this theatrical device. Earlier studies focused on the major never seen by the audience but known through the dialogues characters onstage in presenting and handling certain issues of the characters onstage. Safi Mahmoud Mahfouz explains related to American society. Absent characters were consid- the offstage character as “an offstage or unseen person, ered subsidiary to the major and even the minor characters in living, dead, or imaginary, who does not foot on the stage the dramatic works. Critical issues in the modern American throughout the entire action of the play, but is spoken of by society have been only discussed, reflected and dramatized the onstage characters because of the profound effect he or through the lens of the major and minor characters onstage. she has on the onstage action” (Mahfouz ,2012). However, the role of the absent character is considered to The technique of the offstage character is as old device have a vital role in dramatizing American life. It was only of dramaturgy as the offstage character had been used in studied through its relationship to the major and minor char- the early Greek drama as a driving force and stimulus for acters, without it being given the space for a thorough ex- action. King Laius in Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex and Jason’s amination. Thus, the present study posits that there is a gap bride in Euripides’s Medea are offstage characters, never- in earlier studies resulting from the overlooking of the study theless they are indispensable to the advancement of the of the absent character and its contribution to dramatic texts plot. These offstage characters work as motivating forces and to describing the complexities of American life. for action in drama. Likewise, the offstage character does The issue of the American Dream is directly highlighted exist in Renaissance drama as Shakespeare who created in Shepard’s Buried Child. This mythical notion has been Rosaline’s character in his play Romeo and Juliet. Rosa- fixed in the minds of American people who may adopt a line as an offstage character functioned as a “foil to Juliet wrong method to achieve their objectives. The majori- and to stress the predicament of the two lovers” (Mah- ty of American writers are associated with the idea of this fouz,2012). Yet, Mahfouz contends “it was Strindberg, mythical dream in order to make their people optimistic in Ibsen and Chekhov who excelled in using absence as a pursuing their aspirations. Logically, it is something good theatrical device and weaving it into the fabric of their dra- and right for every person to engage in achieving his or her ma” (Mahfouz,2012). dreams, but the policy should not be egocentric. However, Published by Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD. Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.9n.4p.117 118 IJALEL 9(4):117-124 Sam Shepard proves through his writings that the so-called Thus, American dramatists used the technique of the offstage American Dream was the main cause for people’s plight character in their works forcefully as Daryl Gonder claims, since this dream comes to its end through the destiny of the “consider absence as a psychological paradigm” (Quot- absent character of the play. ed in Mahfouz,2012), American prominent dramatists like O’Neill and Shepard believed that it is “aspects of character, narrative, and stagecraft” (Mahfouz,2012). THE OFFSTAGE CHARACTER AND MODERN John M. Clum notes that Buried Child visualizes the dark AMERICAN DRAMA side of the West part of American society via the role of the Modern American drama is a title used to define some of offstage character. Clum states “Buried Child gives us a America’s most influential dramatic work throughout the dark vision of agrarian America in which the land, even the twentieth century, in which economic, political, social and ‘catastrophic’ weather, seems poisoned by the human inhab- cultural changes that occurred in America after World War itants”(Clum in Roudane,2002). Either as American gothic I. It employs devices such as irony and satire, besides the or an advanced variant of Greek catastrophe, the offstage concept of realism which dominates American drama. Ac- in the play welcomes examination on many levels like the cording to Stephanie Arnold, realism can be considered “the corrosions of American family and the concept of Ameri- distinctive manner in which a playwright chooses to de- can Dream. Shepard’s Buried Child speaks to a white-collar scribe, express, interpret, or present her or his worldview” family separating and turning out badly as a result of unfaith- (Arnold,1998). There was a need for a new literary concept fulness and traitorousness. in response to the romanticism and idealism of melodrama The family, in the Modern American Drama, portrays in which was prevailing at that time, and also because of the de- Buried Child as a disintegrated family with a disabled patri- velopment of science. The main goal of writers was to depict arch, one dead child, an amputee man, a simpleton and ob- everyday life with all the issues that it conveys. Thus, the scene mother. The play is an impression of what was going advent of realism was needed to express the writer’s point on all over America. This family turns into a microcosm of of view of life and dramatize it on the stage away from the the general public with its powerful delineation of the weak idealism of romanticism that is far from reality. The writ- family bond. Shepard focuses on the consequences of an in- ers started depicting their negative social issues looking for fanticide action of the family to show an unhealthy family. the correction according to the standard code of humanity through the realistic style. As they commenced writing in revealing real life of their society, they concluded that us- THE AMERICAN DREAM IN SHEPARD’S PLAYS ing one particular style of writing would give a drab view, Samuel Shepard Rogers III (1943-2017) is one of America’s picture, of life which is no more sought after in the modern most prominent and shining names both in the theatre and age. Therefore, modern writers fused their styles by two or screen in the second half of the 20th century for his huge more key techniques to draw a colorful picture of life to at- body of contribution to the American literature. He presents tract people attention of their life, as J. L. Styan claims “it is unprecedented feats that are related to American society by impossible to find a play of, say, naked realism or pure sym- integrating many colors of literary movements in order to bolism, and the best playwrights are constantly resourceful” give clear encaustic and depict the American actual life of (Styan, 1981: xii). Since absence exists in real life, it is nat- his time. ural to use the absent character in their literary writing to be Shepard was affected by his family’s background that plausible as well as accurate. associates with the features of ambiguity, sin, pessimism, in- The offstage character in Modern American Drama fidelity, and dysfunctional family. Therefore, he refuses the slightly differs from the ancient pattern as it has a back- notion or the myth of the American Dream in his interview ground from the reality of life. Furthermore, modern drama- with Roudane as he states: “I don’t know what the American tist, Shepard concentrates on the psychology and morality of Dream is.

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