The Critical Analysis that I analyzed critically, based on the award winning play by Sam Shepard's "Buried Child-, is by Tucker Orbison and called "Authorization and Subversion of Myth in Shepard's Buried Child-. In this article, Orbison eludes to many different things and some I do agree with and others I most definitely do not. He discusses amongst his article complete character analyses, symbolic events, and what his interpretation of what is Shepard "thinking-. .
In the first portion of his article he states that there are two underlying related stories or "myths- with "Buried Child- that were apparently obvious to him. The first being, the story of the "Corn King- has a definite relation to this play. The "Corn King- is a myth in which the king's health guarantees the well being of the tribe and the prosperity of the land that he is connected with. But when the king become old and ill his crop and his land begins to fade. He must then be ritually put to death and so his soul and be transferred to an heir. .
Then Orbison goes on to say that Dodge is the king of his land and he has been ill and dying for a long time and that Vince comes around and Dodge leaves his soul and kingdom to him and the land was prosperous once again. In which I have to say "ok- I can eat that. I can see at the end when Dodge is dead and Vince in laying on the couch that they are in the same position that Dodge's and Vince's identical stature might give way to the idea that Vince has not only inherited the land but Dodges essence or his soul to make the land more prosperous (because in the end it was). Although that makes sense, what doesn't is that the land is prosperous before Dodge's death. So what does that say about the myth? Does it mean that Dodge already was dead and was trying to find a decent heir, or is it that this whole "Corn King- nonsense didn't even occur to Shepard like the next reference Orbison used to refer to this play.