An analysis of Buried Child

It’s amazing what a secret can do to a person. Keeping secrets among friends can be fun, or helpful when you need to confide in someone you trust. Other secrets can do more harm than good. They can fester inside you and cause endless pain. In “Buried Child,” this is the case. The family is permanently altered by their secret, which becomes a growing moral cancer to them, leaving each impotent in their own …

…have had a profound effect on the way he thinks and acts. It is when Vince is accepted back into that family that Shelly realizes there is no hope for this family. They are lost. She then leaves them all to their permanent insanity. This shows that even though the secret was finally brought out into the open, it was too little too late. A terrible secret kept that long can tear a person apart.