In Buried Child, Shepard explores a dark and cynical framework of the “nuclear” family. The play intentionally deconstructs the Post-World War II facade of an organically wholesome, prescribed family unit by exposing its deep historical dysfunction and decay. Instead of a loving, supportive environment, the family home in the play is riddled with secrets, violence, and alienation. The father, Dodge, is a detached drunk, much like Shepard’s own father. The matriarch, Halie, is trapped in her own lies and illusions. The children, Tilden and Bradley, are scarred by past traumas and disconnected from their ideals. Through this, Shepard interrogates the myth of a perfect family unit, showing how its idealized image is often at odds with the reality of personal pain, neglect, and betrayal, rendering the “nuclear” family more of a symbol of suffocating repression than of love and unity.

In rural areas like the one depicted in Buried Child, these shifts were especially acute. The decline of the agricultural economy, the disintegration of traditional family structures, and the collapse of rural communities' social fabric all contributed to a sense of abandonment and decay. The farmhouse in the play symbolizes not just a physical setting, but also a metaphor for the crumbling of old American ideals. particularly the myth of a prosperous, unified, and hardworking nation. The characters in Buried Child represent a fractured family clinging to a past that is no longer sustainable, much like the broader American society grappling with its own identity crisis in the wake of economic and cultural transformations.

Furthermore, Shepard’s choice of a rural Illinois setting places the play within the larger historical context of the American Midwest, a region that experienced significant dislocation in the post-war years. As industrialization and suburbanization spread across the country, rural communities faced economic hardship, leading to widespread migration from farms to cities in search of work. This migration, coupled with the fading promise of agricultural prosperity, mirrored the existential struggles of the family in Buried Child, isolated, disillusioned, and struggling to reconcile the weight of their own history with the realities of an uncertain future. In Buried Child, the setting reflects the broader disillusionment of the era, capturing the decay of both personal and national narratives.