“Strychnine in the Gut”
In his essay titled, “Strychnine in the Gut,” Stephen Bottoms discusses many of the ideas and images that permeate the first two of Sam Shepard’s “family” plays, Curse of the Starving Class and Buried Child. Select a passage from the essay that you find interesting or significant—a direct quote of two or three sentences, along with a page citation—and discuss your reasons for choosing it. After everyone has posted a comment, read all of the entries and post another comment to extend and deepen the conversation. Make a connection to human nature!
I would first like to point out that I found Steven Bottom's essay really interesting because of the deep layers in which he arrived at when talking about both plays. Reading an essay that goes into so much detail is not only interesting, but is also helpful for my future essays. I found Bottom’s writing most interesting when he talked about the play, “Curse of the Starving Class.” This may be partly because we worked and focused so hard on this play in class, that it became more helpful and interesting to see what he had to say. The passage that struck out to me was when he begins to talk about the explosion and what the audience is supposed to be feeling: “…their arrival is a gruesomely hilarious intervention which assaults the audience with contradictory emotions: their giggling is highly entertaining, but should we laugh or weep? Is Emma dead? Where did they come from anyway? Look at that bloody lamb!” (Bottoms, 169). Bottoms makes a very strong point, because the audience is thrown off-course. Shepard created a mixture of emotions and the audience does not know which ones to pick. I believe that because the audience is watching a funny scene and the whole concept of Emma dying seems to only be a lingering idea, the audience takes a more comedic approach to the scene. Thinking about this, one can also assume that in times of desperate measures and sorrow, people need comedy. The whole place has a very devastating and sad tone to it, and suddenly out of nowhere, two characters come and break up this pattern. I believe that it is a part of human nature to want to stray away from such patterned emotions, to a more feel-good emotion; even if only for a second. Shepard is very smart to combine these two emotions together because not only does the scene become more complicated and interesting, but also the audience is forced to use their mind more and question human nature.
ReplyDeleteI made only one side note on my copy of the essays while I read in the Chicago Midway airport and that was, "oh, I like this one" next to a sentence in the essay "Subterranean Murmurs". "Halie and Dodge's denial of the shadows of the past occasionally creates a sense that the play is dealing metaphorically with America's collective tendency to bury the intolderable memories of its bloody history of slavery and genocide, and so forth" (Bottom 176). I think that this directly shoots back to the discussion we had before we had even begun "The Curse of the Starving Class" about what is The American Dream. In The Dream families are perfect and nothing ever goes wrong. There are no dead babies in the backyard or sons with wooden legs; there's no alcoholic father or men stealing money from your parents. Unfortunatley, very few people are actually living The Dream. Most people belong to the middle class, as Shepard originally called the starving class: "The economic status of the family is perhaps better indicated by a draft title of the play, Curse of the Middle Class" (Bottom 166). The entire nation deals with horrors on a broad scale, and individual families have their own bumps (or canyons) to overcome as well leaving their situations to be a mircocosm (smaller version of?) the over arching idea of what is being done by the country.
ReplyDeleteI always kind of like these essays. Sure, at first I complain about them, but while reading I always find things that interest me so much more about the text the essay pertains to. Not to mention how much the essay helps in understanding a play like, "Curse of the Starving Class" or "Buried Child".
ReplyDeleteAnyway, while reading this particular essay, one thing that I found interesting was Stephan J. Bottoms insight on the part of "Curse of the Starving Class" when Wesley walked through the house naked, carrying the lamb, and then returned in Weston's clothes with nothing but the carcuss of the sheep. Bottom writes,
"He returns having donned his father's filthy clothes (which he found in the trash) and having slaughtered the lamb. This blatantly nonrealistic sequence of events though theatrically striking, suggests an unusually crude use of symbolism on Shepard's part: innocence is sacrificed, the father's mantel is accepted." (Bottom 172)
Bottom goes on to talk about how Wesley realizes that he is a "helpless victim of deterministic conditioning" and that he feels that he just grew up. I think this is interesting, because I never noticed while reading the play how what seemed like a random act, could really symbolize something as spirtually meaningful as baptism and the sacrifice of innocence. It was also interesting that Wesley left with the the bare essentials of what made him Wesley (his naked body), and symbolically returned as Weston
As I read the "Curse of the Starving Class", I found the play much less disturbing to read than "Buried Child". I think for many, some title that is so stange and hooking as "Buried Child" is very likely to draw a reader in. I found the play "Buried Child" as one of those things that I've read in the past that are so disturbing to read and you just want to set it down, but it's impossible to look away. The set of the play really helped in adding to the dark "stage" and feeling of the play, making it very interesting to read. Stephen Bottoms in his critique to Sam Shepards plays compares the stage settings of "Curse of the Starving Class" and "Buried Child" extremely thoughtfully and the minute I read this passage, I knew it set me up directly for my blog entry. "Yet this simplicity is not used merely to reproduse the kind of overt contridictions between the ultra-real and the obviously fake seen in Curse. Rather, there is a more eerie sense of stangeness, of perceptions being oddly distorted. The television, for example, flickers light onto the dim stage but produces "no image, no sound." (Bottoms 174). What's so fascinating about the stage of this play is how something as small as the TV flickering in the backround and the rain gently falling against the roof can set the stage and setting as "eerie" and "dark". It instanly, atleast for me, gave me a picture in my mind and made the play so much more interesting to read. The behavior and the attitudes of all the characters go so well with the setting. But back to my first point I was making in the beginning, I found myself when I was reading this play wanting a lot to put the play down because of how dark and creepy it was. But I really feel like the setting of the stage (or atleast the picture it gave for the reader to imagine for themselves) made it impossible to put the play down.
ReplyDeleteI would like to begin by stating my feeling on the two plays; I like both of them, but I think Buried Child is by far the better of the two. I mainly say this because although it goes in many different directions during the course of the play, on the whole it feels like a complete work. Strychnine in the Gut is a very dense and well though-out essay, and almost any passage in it could be chosen to be quoted. Because of my feelings on Buried Child, however, I chose a passage from Subterranean Murmurs. It happens to be from the first paragraph of the essay, and I merely chose it because it is a statement I completely agree with: “Buried Child, like Curse, is distinctly unsettling in form...This is especially true of act 3, which eventually erupts into savage force, as glass bottles are hurled and smashed live onstage, Bradley crawls around helplessly in pursuit of his wooden leg…But a sense of pressurized unease gradually builds up over the course of the first two acts… and this finally explodes into chaos in the third” (Bottoms 173). In the past few years I have always thought of myself as someone not easily disturbed, although extreme images of violence and sadness can affect me, disturbed is very rarely the word that comes to mind after seeing them. But the third act of Buried Child had a deep and disturbing impact on me. Bottoms cites evidence of this “savage force” with such images as Bradley desperately inching his way across the floor and making painful grabs for his prosthetic leg, and it’s these images that made me feel uncomfortable in my own skin. I know that is a pretty drastic description, but while reading the third act that is literally how I felt. And because of this, I loved the play. The two first acts did seem like they were slowly luring the audience into a false sense of security on how Buried Child would play out. After feeling comfortable with the subtle unease of the play, I truly wasn’t prepared for the third act. It held the play together and demonstrated why the first two acts were necessary for the play to give that sense of disturbance to the spectator.
ReplyDeleteA passage I found interesting in “Strychnine in the Gut” was about how the setting affected the feeling of the play and how it suggested certain ideas. Bottoms wrote, “One significant difference between the two plays is therefore the change in location. Curse’s evocation of the plastic impermanence of southern California is replaced in Buried child by a sense of isolation and backwardness, set as it in the vast farm regions of the Midwest. The play suggests that the family’s life has gone on virtually unchanged for decades, and indeed that is it is somehow bound to the land itself, tied in with the natural cycle of death and rebirths in the field” (Bottom 174). This suggests sometimes it is human nature for people to want to stick with tradition and not want to change one’s ways of life, resulting in the “natural cycle of death and rebirths in the field” for the family in “Buried Child”. People usually do not want to change a system that has worked efficiently for such a long time. In addition, the location in “Buried Child” puts forth a sense of isolation from society. When people are cut off from other people and customs, people tend to live their lives parallel to a traditional way of life and become unaware of the social customs. Bottom explains that the family is tied to the land itself, not society. Moreover, after many years of living like this a family accepts this unchanging method of living and the family lives like this for years upon years.
ReplyDeleteThere were many things that interested me while reading this essay. Stephen J Bottoms had a very interesting view of the events in the play. One of my favorites was the idea of the slaughtered lamb portraying Jesus. However, there was one thought that I hadn't considered at all while i was reading, even though I experienced it. My group performed the scene with the mobsters entering and talking to the family members. Without reading this essay I would've never thought of the way the emotions of the audience is affected by their entrance. "Their arrival is a gruesomely hilarious intervention which assaults the audience with contradictory emotions: their giggling is highly entertaining, but should we laugh or weep?" (Bottoms 169). There was just a huge explosion and Emma, a central character, has just died. Their is so much going on, yet we can't help but laugh at the characters that arrive in their home. This is a perfect example of how sometimes, in life, you can't help how your emotions play out. There have been times in my life where I laugh despite the serious or sad situation. This point in the essay really made me think of all the connections to this in my own life.
ReplyDeletewhile scrolling down I noticed that Erika picked the same passage as me... weird.
ReplyDeleteI really didn't know what to think of the play the first time I saw it. I felt unsatisfied and a little blanked out. Yet now, after reading the play and the critisms I feel I understand and appriciate it so much more.the passage I picked was
"He returns having donned his father's filthy clothes and having slaughtered the lamb. This blatantly nonrealistic sequence of events though theatrically striking, suggests an unusually crude use of symbolism on Shepard's part: innocence is sacrificed, the father's mantel is accepted." (Bottom 172)
I was so intriguied with this part of the play. I find the alcholic father, confused son realationship very interesting. The fact that he puts on his father's clothes and kills the lamb brings so much depth to their realationship.
My own father is an alcholic, he doesn't live with us so my perspective and story is different but I was able to find many connections. Wesley had to stay calm and take responsibility. Most of the time he knew who he was and didn't let his fathers presence interupt who he was. But then he trys his fathers solution to awaking yourself. After though he doesn't feel different. I sometimes wonder or question my fathers presence in my life and what difference it has made.
The sacrifice of innocence is also incredibly interesting. When the lamb was first on stage the first thing I thought of was the lambs part in the bible. When it was slaughtered it fit the inner story of rebirth. I like the pattern that Sam Shepard has in both plays. There is death and life. The life is there is in the rebirth and the death is there in both the lamb and sister and the death of the fathers other side.
I chose a quote from the "subterranean murmurs" section of Bottoms' criticism. It's from just after when he's discussing the christian themes of redemption in "Buried Child": Vince rising to take Dodge's place, the baby being dug up, and halie announcing the fields are like "eden" again.
ReplyDelete"And yet if this judeo-christian scheme of interpretation lends the play a hopeful outlook, it is directly contradicted by other elements, which suggest a much more insidious pagan sense of inescapable doom. For if the family is tied to the cyclical life of the land, they are also trapped, subject to the changing seasons without any control over their own fates." (Bottoms 179)
I thought it was interesting because it suggested Sam Shepard was using the play to talk about Man being a part of nature. This idea, with good and evil in human nature seen as codependent as summer and winter are in the natural world is a pagan sort of idea, not a christian one. The bible says that Man was created seperately from animals, and in God's image. Christianity obviously acknowledges sin, but itis based on the optimistic presumption that good is always stronger than evil in the world, because good existed first and redemption will come before the end.
I would disagree with the characterization of the situation people are tied to as 'doom". There is as much good as evil in their existence. Just because it is inevitable that in the future they will commit more sins does not mean their existence is evil. All humans do evil. And the misery seen in the characters is only the winter of their lives: their summer is as glorious as their winter is hellish and bleak. The farm produces enough milk to fill two Lake Michigans and their children are all-American athletes.
The dualism of this, which is human nature itself, is what the American Dream is made of. America as we know it came into existence only after terrible things were done. The smallpox-infected blankets we gave the indians, the trails of tears we made themleave their homes forever on and the battlefields we made them bleed and die on were the blood sacrifice that allowed our ancestors to build the place we know and love today. Much (if not arguably all) of what is good in the world today, especially what is materially successful came out of some fform of blood sacrifice like this. For there to be good, there has to also be evil. The only difference between what we did to build our country and the live hearts Aztecs ripped out of their prisoners is that the Aztecs accepted the fact that they did evil to make the rains come.
This is BEN. It was interesting to hear the perspective of someone who has actually done in depth research on Sam Shepard. Stephen J Bottoms had some interesting points pertaining to the style and format which Shepard had made unique. During the mid seventies, the style of Shepard is described as " avante garde pyrotechniques"(Bottoms 5). This meant basically that he was experimenting with literary fireworks, or or a new and interesting idea. Bottoms goes on to describe how Shepard starts to shift into conventional form which many other play writers of that time used. He explains that " Shepard, far from making some belated bid for mainstream respectability, was bringing his sense of experimental crisis home to roost"(Bottoms 5). I found this sentence interesting because it showed how little Shepard cared about the popularity of his plays, but rather was making a change because he wanted to write about something different. He did not care what people thought, but rather he had found a niche that he felt comfortable as well as experienced on. I like the way Bottoms likens Shepard to a bird who has finally found a place where he can stay that is familiar and he has found a subject that he is experienced on. He lived the life that many of his characters which made it easy for him to imagine what there lives would be like. Shepard did not need to appeal to readers, because his topics appealed and made sense to himself. I believe that audiences appealing to his work was an afterthought, and that he felt it unnecessary . However the topics he chose to write about obviously did appeal to reader, because they had aspects which ordinary people could relate to. Shepard discusses the American dream which is something that every person in America strives to live. this theme is emminent in many of his plays. Shepard wrote about broken families, and people struggling to lice a life of poverty. Shepard's works appealed to audiences because of these realistic aspects. In the quote by Stephen J Bottoms, he describes Shepard in tje seventies as a man who has found his place. I interpret this as meaning that Shepard while maybe not living the American dream he is living a life brought about by the desire to live the American dream himself. Shepard grew up in a trailer park with a father who was drunk much of the time. I believe that his inability to live the American Dream at a young age motivated him to strive for it later in life. He now lives the life of a world renowned play writer who has won many awards, but he has paid the price. By living in a trailer park in his childhood, as well as the other challenges he faced , he did gain material which would be valuable for his plays. Ironically material gained from his experiences, led to his ability to live the American dream.
ReplyDeleteThis is FRANCESCA. This piece that Stephen Bottoms wrote about is almost like a sublime picture. Where things are hidden inside the art. You think you see the whole picture when there are things hidden inside deeper. "There is also the possibility that the family members are "starving" in a spiritual rather than a physical manner (there are even some blatantly biblical images, the "blood of the lamb" being most obvious) (Bottoms, 166). While reading or seeing the play you see or read that the lamb is present but not all pick up on the representation of the lamb. It's almost like a hidden feature inside the play. There is one layer of the play which everyone sees. Then inside the set and inside the words there are hidden parts that future his insight in the play. In the set you see the lamb but you don't see the biblical figure the lamb represents. Also inside Shepards wording in the play's blunt hints are laid down that Tilden was the father of the Buried Child. I didn't pick up on these until reading Stephen's insight on that. It's really cool how Stephen points all these hidden attributes inside the play.
ReplyDeleteThis KRYSYTNA. By reading "Subterranean Murmurs" it helped connect many of the deeper aspects in the context that were easily overlooked when just reading it through. One that really stuck out to me was the emotions this play brought about throughout each act and how they were purposely meant to build up the intensity. "Establishing the idea of a gothic-style mystery surrounding the family's past, it lures the audience in with the implicit promise that the truth will eventually be revealed. But a sense of pressurized unease gradually builds up over the course of the first two acts, and this finally explodes into chaos in the third" (Shepard 173). I think Shepard executed this perfectly. In the first two acts there is a lot of mystery which makes the audience curious to find out what this family's secret is. As the mystery builds, the more the audience is interested in the play and the more satisfying the ending is. I think it is interesting that these emotions build without even realizing it and these emotions are exactly how Shepard intends his audience to feel. His approach is almost underhanded: not piecing together enough aspects to be able to predict an accurate ending. Therefore Shepard executes an intriguing structure in his play which allows him to get the exact reaction he wants from his audience.
ReplyDeleteStephen Bottoms has a very unique way of analyzing plays. He picked up on things that were so deep in the play that I would have never known if I hadn’t read his essays. One of the passages that really interested me was when he was talking about Buried Child and he mentioned that it had to deal with royalty: “Dodge is the dried-up monarch ‘festering away! Decomposing!’ on his thronelike sofa, and the lack of fertility in the land is thus related to the loss of vitality in the family, an impression reinforced by the fact that Dodge’s sons are clearly not fit to relieve him of the crown and so bring new life to the farm” (Bottoms 178). That idea is so very interesting because when looking back on the play you can see this almost as clearly as Bottoms wrote about it. It is hard to think that someone could pick up on all of these slight innuendos while reading it, but Bottoms does and writes about them with such ease and confidence that I wish I could write with about the simplest things. The whole essay was very interesting and flowed with no obstacles (that did not mean that I had to look up a lot of words to find the meanings).
ReplyDeleteReading through the blogs, I found it really interesting that so many people chose to write about the religion aspect of Bottom's essay, and how it pertains the Sam Shepard's metaphoric meaning of it throughout "Curse of the Starving Class." It's strange to think that though people may tell themselves that they're not religious, so many of them are intrigued by religion and always have something to say on the matter. One thing that I felt should be discussed while reading the blogs was something said in Jimmy's blog. He said,
ReplyDelete"I thought it was interesting because it suggested Sam Shepard was using the play to talk about Man being a part of nature. This idea, with good and evil in human nature seen as codependent as summer and winter are in the natural world is a pagan sort of idea, not a christian one. The bible says that Man was created seperately from animals, and in God's image. Christianity obviously acknowledges sin, but it is based on the optimistic presumption that good is always stronger than evil in the world, because good existed first and redemption will come before the end."
Though I agree with a lot of what Jimmy said in his blog, I feel differently about parts of this statement. As in the case of most religions, I believe that there are a lot of simularities between Paganism and Christianity. Though I don't know much about Paganism (or Christianity for that matter), I agree with Jimmy when he said that, in Paganism, the idea of good and evil being is as co-dependant as summer and winter, I also believe that this is an idea that both religions share. The way I look at it, the Christian belief on good and evil is that good people are meant to do evil things. No, they arn't supposed to do evil things with the intention of being evil, but more to make mistakes and when the time comes to accept God, you as a Christian will have learned from those mistakes and be an even stronger believer in Christ.This is why I believe that not only does Christanity acknowledge sin, but it embraces sin, with the hope that through Christianity sinners will see the error of there ways and turn to God. I don't think that there is a strong believer of Christianity out there who doesn't honestly believed that they have sinned, but do know that the are good people.I also don't agree with the statement that Christians believe that good will always triumph over evil. After all, the idea of hell is just as much a Christian idea as it is for any other religion. Hell is based on the idea that the Devil's influence will be accepted and, for those people, evil will have won. This is also the reason for prayer. If good were to always be victorious over evil, why would any one pray? The only time that Good will supposedly triumph over evil that is made clear in the Bible is at the end of time . But even then, this is only based on the faith of Christianity.
Responding to Max:
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with what you said. I too wondered how it was possible for someone to pick up on so many slight details and subtle symbols. At times I even thought that Bottoms must have discovered some things about the play that Shepard never thought of to begin with. There are so many hidden meanings that Bottoms points out in fact, that I think there is literally no way Shepard could have written the play with all of them in his mind. Of course this is an inference, like most of Bottoms discoveries are, yet it too has truth in it. Regarding the quote you specifically chose, about the hierarchy of Dodge, although I didn't personally see this the first time I read the play, the people from Montreal did and so it seems very likely that Shepard intended this.
While reading all of these posts, I found a line in Erika's first post that really struck out to me and stayed in my mind. In Erika's last line she stated: "It was also interesting that Wesley left with the the bare essentials of what made him Wesley (his naked body), and symbolically returned as Weston." I think this is such an interesting concept. The audience is aware that Wesley comes back a "changed" character, but understanding why is very important, yet hard to figure out. Why does Wesley symbolically turn into Weston when he comes back? What does this mean to the reader? I believe that with all the changes that Wesley must deal with, his father character of Weston, plays a big role to him. Though he does not want to become like his father, he can see how he is acting just like him. This adds yet another layer onto this play; it is not just about the "starving class" or the religious parts that Steven J. Bottoms touched on, it is also a father-son struggle. Wesley longs to connect with his father, but this seems impossible with Weston's lifestyle. Wesley does not want to BE Weston, but he wants a different relationship than what he has with his father.
ReplyDeleteI really like what Michael wrote, relating to Bottom's description of Dodge being a dried up monarch. Max said that he had not picked up on the subtle descriptions in the play that Bottom wrote about, and neither had I. After I read Max's passage I went back and scanned through the text. Every scene is littered with crumbling, shrinking, drying up and unease. I don't actually have my script on me because it is not in my carry on... but I will try to remember to add a quote in later. But I think that maybe not only is Dodge a fading monarch but you could make a claim that those around him add in to the idea of king's court as well. Tilden is at Dodge's beck on call if he wants to or not, like a higher class servant. Halie is watching over him, but from a far, maybe like a queen who was forced into marriage but has grown to at least tolerate the man and marriage and has a little bit of care. It is apparent Dodge is in charge; if he wants to share a story he will, but if he doesn't it will not get shared. I think that Bradley would be a knight, a no longer useful knight, but he has braved the field of war.
ReplyDeleteSorry Mr. Chapin I just got your E-Mail this morning. I hope it is ok that i redid it.
ReplyDeleteIn Sam Shepard's Plays there is a lot of behind the scenes imagery. There are things like props or lines in the play that if they werent there the play wouldnt make sense. "Moments such as Tilden carefully covering his sleeping father's entire body with corn husks, Bradley shaving Dodge's head (also while he is sleeping)" (174). All these little things that happen to Dodge while he is sleeping are just examples but without them the play wouldnt be the same. In these scene when Tilden is covering him with corn husks its kind of like a forshadowing. By Tilden covering him it shows him being buried...which is exactly what happens. Shepard does a lot of really different things in his plays. But without them his plays just wouldnt be the same. I really like all the imagery. I love how almost everything has a meaning behind it.
While going through the posts i found that Francesca had the same sort of ideas about his writing as i did. I really like how she compared his writing to the band Sublime. It is true. The imagery that is shown in the play is just like the abstract and randomness of Sublime.
ReplyDeleteAlso while reading the play "Buried Child" for the first time i didnt quite pick up on Tilden being the father. I should have picked up on it but i guess it never really occured to me that someone would write a play about a mother and her son having a kid together. I guess its just a little strange to me.
This is FRANCESCA! I agree with Erika on the part that in which you don't want to read the essay at the time but it turned out to be really interesting. I agree with her talking about how so many people wrote about the religious aspect of the lamb. I disagree where you say that many people think they are not religious but by writing about this it shows that they have some religious knowledge. I personally don't consider myself religious and by not picking up on the lamb i believe that proves my point. But then again people who are considered religious maybe didn't pick up on the lamb either. So either way my point isn't really proven. So either way my theory or Erika's theory is correct.
ReplyDeleteI really agreed with krystyna's comment on how the first two acts of "Buried Child" were just so weird, warped and fascinating that Sam Shepard makes us NEED to read the final act to get some sort of understanding of just what bizarre things are happening. When I did the quiz, I had not read the second act, so I had to read it to do the 40 point question on it. reading it, I was just totally blown away with confusion, not having any idea what was going on. I had a hrad time breaking out of this to actually do that quiz question
ReplyDeleteErika said in passing something about how people who don't call themselves religious are still fascinated by religion. it's true, I'm definitely one of these people. You don't have to believe the literal truth of a religion to appreciate the symbolism in parts of it. The bible and other "holy books" are no different to me from books like "The Woman in the Dunes". The difference is that people in our culture today literally believe that jesus was the son of god and that there are physical beings called angels, not to mention all sorts of other things in the bible. The fact that there's a religion based on the bible means that it's seen as special and that appreciating parts of it means something more than appreciating parts of Sam Shepard plays. I don't think it does.
ReplyDeleteBut moving on...
Erika, you were talking about how "good people do evil things" and that's what sin is. My point is that in Christianity (or some forms of it as far as I know) people are considered to BE "good people". And in Paganism, there isn't the assumption that people are basically good. in paganism (as I see it, since I don't know a lot about it either) people aren't any better than they are evil. Good and Evil complement and cancel each other out. Everybody's as much a dumb sack of poop as a warm pile of maple syrup-covered pancakes.
I'll still have to disagree with you when you say Christianity doesn't believe good will win in the end. The bible says that God will win the battle of armagedon against the antichrist and that afterward satan will be destroyed.
I think you're basically an optimistic person, because you talk about people being good on the whole and evil being mistakes that are inevitable.
I have read through all these blogs and picked up on several things (one being that this is sure a wordy bunch of students).
ReplyDeleteFirst I'd like to say that I agree with Krystyna's ideas about how Shepard kept the element of mystery alive throughout the play "Buried Child" intentionally to keep the reader (or viewer for that matter) on their toes. Clever and successful ploy. Well done Shepard. Throughout the whole of the text,I was thoroughly involved in the characters relationships, using them as tools to help me figure out the meaning behind the unknown past event.
Another thing that interested me, as well as Erika apparently, is that so many of my peers were interested in the religious symbolism displayed in "Curse of the Starving Class." I was unable for a short time to decide whether or not the interest stemmed from the feeling of surprise encountered when being introduced to this idea (I was caught quite off gaurd when I read the essay because I had not seen the symbolism that Bottoms mentioned) or if they were in fact interested in the very concept of the religious portrayal.Religion is a common symbol in plays and other various stories because it is one of the oldest, well-known realms we can date back to. Christianity, Judaism, Islam and a vast array of ancient religions (Greek, Roman, Celtic, Norse, etc) are often acknowledged in modern texts because they are well known. The interest in these symbols is not restricted to those who find themselves in a church pew every sunday morning. Rather it is inviting to any literate person in this day.
In response to Junybug93:
ReplyDelete"By Tilden covering him it shows him being buried...which is exactly what happens. Shepard does a lot of really different things in his plays. But without them his plays just wouldnt be the same. I really like all the imagery. I love how almost everything has a meaning behind it."
I also really respected Shepard for including these hints in the play. The symbolism made the whole play that much deeper and worth reflecting on. The corn not only symbolized the burial, but was also a crop. The corn and then the carrots and finally the corpse of the once-buried child. It was such a powerful pattern.
I thought this built Tilden's character so much. He was the harvester. He was as it said in the criticism, the Tiller. He harvested all the crops It was he who buried the father with corn husks and unburied the child. He was such a big part of the play yet so childish in his actions.
Also part of the symbolism was how Tilden was the Corn King.
It made me think about everyone else part in the play. Tilden is such a big part but his seems so balanced with everyone else.
This is BEN!
ReplyDeleteI liked what Reece said about the first two acts. He said that the first two acts lured him into a false sense of security, and I believe that this is so true. The beginning is an innocent enough scene of an old man and woman. we never really see the story unfolding until the third act. I also agree that part of the reason that the story is interesting is because the mystery that shrouds it. In addition the knowledge that we had of Sam Shepard explains that Shepard liked to write about uncomfortable topics, and a plot about an old man and woman just wouldn't seem that interesting if there had not been the part about the killing of the baby etc.
I also agree with Jimmy that religion is interesting, and whether we agree with the morals, ideals of that religion, we are still often extremely interested. I feel that the family in the story said that they were religious, however they never really followed the religion closely. I believe that often people are interested in religion because most religions at the core are the same. For example Christianity has many of the same ideas as Judaism.
Erika brings up a really interesting topic in her blog. I like how she noticed how sometimes there is a lot more to “random insignificant acts” than meets the eye. It is so easy to overlook what seems like insignificant parts of a play or any literature, when really there may be so much more to it that we may never take the time to understand. There can be so much depth to an object, character, or phrase and it’s so interesting to read an essay on (what seems like) the hidden meaning. There is so much symbolism if you look deeper into the meaning of what you are actually reading and I think that has a lot to do with human nature. “Overlooking” aspects of life is human nature. We are all so prone to judging situations from our own perspective in order to define and distinguish what we actually do not know. There is so much more to than what meets the eye but judging the aspects in our lives that we do not fully understand is our only mechanism to comfort ourselves with answers. When you think about it, there is so much dept around us that it would be impossible to fully understand every aspect and understanding a lot of these aspects is not necessarily a necessity. However, it is interesting how our judgments define our opinions. Maybe if we did not judge everything around us we would be more prone to accept change or be more open to understand that there is so much more that goes beyond our biased opinions and basic understanding of life. Bottom line; there are so many different ways to infer different information and as judgments may not be completely accurate it is our basic instinct but it is interesting to think about the dept in life that is so easily perceived as a “random insignificant act”.
ReplyDeleteI agree with neonpink (Molly?) about how you get a very different feeling while reading both plays. It seems that "Curse of the Starving Class" has a more comical sub-tones while reading it. Like when Weston comes home drunk those two times, even though it is sad that he is an alcoholic he still is very funny. There is no real comic relief in "Buried Child" except for maybe the first part of the second act. It is a depressing play that is beautifully written. It is so cool, and a little disturbing, that Shepard can write two plays that give you such a picture view of families that are on the brink of falling apart. I think that both of these plays are at the top of dramatic writing lore, and I also think that it would definitely be fun to act in either of these plays because of the energy that you can feel from just reading the text.
ReplyDeleteI'm kind of angry I didn't find Oriana's passage before her. I think that it was a very good passage to choose: “…their arrival is a gruesomely hilarious intervention which assaults the audience with contradictory emotions: their giggling is highly entertaining, but should we laugh or weep? Is Emma dead? Where did they come from anyway? Look at that bloody lamb!” (Bottoms, 169). I like that Oriana chose this passage because when I read this passage, that is exactly what I thought. And I found myself doing exactly what Bottoms says the audience does. I wasn't sure whether to laugh at the two mobsters that suddenly appeared in the scene or to be sad because Emma was dead. I find that there are many situations like this in real life. Examples are hard to come up with on the spot but for example, not as emotional as the one in "Curse of the Starving Class". But say if your watching America's funniest home videos, I'm sure many of us can relate to the situation where you laugh so hard, but think to yourself WOW THAT MUST'VE REALLY HURT, I REALLY SHOULDN'T BE LAUGHING. But you still keep laughing. This example certainly isn't the same as in "Curse of the Starving Class" but hopefully you get what I'm saying. In some situations, your confused on how to react. And I like that Oriana chose this passage.
ReplyDeletein response to Francesca that "There is one layer of the play which everyone sees. Then inside the set and inside the words there are hidden parts that future his insight in the play," I agree with you. There are many things in plays that do not allows make themselves clear at a first glance. However, after slowly analyzing the text we are able to understand subtler messages conveyed through the play. In a way, this makes the plays a work of art; being able to paint a message with words, where messages may be subtle and not clear at first. Usually this happens through symbols. However, Stephen Bottoms explains that Sam Shepard has other ways of doing this. For example, timing and setting both play a role. Stephen Bottoms made many aspects of the play clearer and simpler to understand that I probably would never have recognized.
ReplyDeleteThis is SAM!
ReplyDeleteI found Stephen Bottoms essay on the Sam Shepard plays “Buried Child” and Curse of the starving class” very interesting and insightful. He points out many things that I had never even thought about. I found it especially interesting when he was talking about the “inheritance” of Vince and Wesley. The plays are similar in that both have fathers who leave the house and leave it to be inherited by their sons. Bottoms discusses how their inheritance is not just the house and land but also the “family’s blood curse of violent masculinity” (Bottoms 180). In “Curse” we see this violence in Weston’s alcoholism and general drunkenness, whereas in “Buried Child” it is shown through Dodge killing his (or Tilden’s?) son. Bottoms views this inheritance as inescapable: “For Vince as for Wesley, this inheritance summarily puts paid to any attempt at independent will. And yet there is also perhaps the hint, in Vince’s monologic reverie on his fate, of a certain wonder and awe in the realization that while he has lost himself – paradoxically – finally knows who he is” (Bottoms 180). Bottoms is referring to Vince’s monologue during which he says he saw his face turn into his father’s face and then into his grandfathers. Vince realizes that he is really the same person as Tilden and Dodge and there is nothing he can do to prevent it. Even though the fields have been revived and are once again producing crops, the violent and condescending nature of Dodge will always be present in the form of Vince. Despite the fact that these heirs of their respective families are supposedly a rebirth and a new beginning, the ghosts of past “kings” will always haunt them. Maybe it is human nature for a son to retain some of the habits of their father. Alcoholism is certainly hereditary and that seems to be a major component of Shepard’s plays.
This is SAM.
ReplyDeleteI agree Krystyna in that the first two acts of the play are very mysterious but I’m not sure that the third act really answers the questions the audience has about the family. The central issue to the play is obviously that of the buried child. In the first two acts everyone is just waiting for that mystery to be uncovered and the truth to be revealed. However, as Bottoms points out, we never really know whose child it was and what exactly happened to it. “And yet (at least in Shepard’s original text it is impossible to assemble the various references into any coherent narrative of what “actually” happened” (Bottoms 176). The play is full of conflicting stores from all the different family members and it is difficult to discern what the actual truth is. Yet I think that this adds to the play. If we knew the whole truth right off than the play would be much less enjoyable.
I liked how Steve Bottoms made clear the two highly contrasting "bad guys" in The Curse of the Starving Class. He says "The juxtaposition of these cartoon invaders with all the relatively three dimensional family members emphasizes the plays sense of insanity and imminent collapse" (169). The more you learn about Weston and Taylor, the more obvious it becomes that there is no saving this family.At first Taylor seems like a good guy, but when you find he's the one who sold Weston the no-good land he becomes a more important figure in the play. He's caused damage before and he will do it again. Only he's educated and organized and somewhat together, where as Weston is really not. Weston is quite the opposite really. It makes you re-think any prior judgement you've made on any other character too quick off-if Taylor at first appears to be saving the family and then leaves in a rush when things get rough, he's only adding to the problem. You can never know the whole character until you know the whole story.
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