"Graveyard Day", by Bobbie Ann Mason

Reading any of the stories in Bobbie Ann Mason’s Shiloh, I become aware that I am in the hands of not only a tremendously gifted writer, but also an impressively skilled and intelligent one.

“Graveyard Day” revolves around the dramatic question of whether or not Waldeen will marry Joe McClain; as the story moves toward its resolution, we sense the potential for tragic consequences for Mason’s richly evoked protagonist.

Though Waldeen is recently divorced and needs to move on, she believes that families cannot “shift membership” (167) and that Joe McClain “will turn out to be just like” (173) her first husband. While her daughter, Holly, views Joe McClain as a father, and gets a thrill when they sleep at his house, Waldeen compares a step-father to a “sugar substitute” (166). Waldeen does not want to repeat mistakes or to redefine family, but she loves Joe and wants to do what is best for her and Holly. Filling us in on Waldeen’s history and doubts as well as her daughter’s emotional needs, Mason complicates the dramatic question, creating tension, holding her reader.

If Waldeen marries Joe McClain, the marriage could end in another divorce; if she does not marry him, Waldeen may wither in a world that permits no risk or evolution. As it turns out, every other character in the story embraces change. Waldeen’s friends have recently returned from Florida; Waldeen’s ex-husband took flight all the way to Arizona. Holly longs to “go anywhere” (166) or to “go somewhere” (170). Waldeen, however, is “unaccustomed to eating out” (167) and has never flown in an airplane. Joe comments that she is “afraid to do anything new” (175). The question of whether she will allow her life to evolve becomes a critical one because Mason hints at what lies in store for Waldeen if she remains standing still: stagnation and loneliness, not only for her, but for her daughter.

Early in the story Waldeen suggests a picnic, and when Joe declines because “Saturday’s graveyard day” (167), the day on which he must tend to his grandmother’s grave, Waldeen suggests a picnic amid the tombstones. On the day of the picnic, in the presence of her daughter, friends and Joe, Waldeen experiences the “comforting” (177) revelation that the grave is the true symbol of marriage; that is, there is no escape from family, whether that family stays together or not, and particularly if the marriage produces a child. The marriage completes itself in the “burial plot” (177), and one must give in to this. This insight, added to her memory of an adventure at the lake with her first boyfriend, helps Waldeen to make her choice: at that moment, she jumps into the pile of leaves that Joe has raked; finally, she acts with abandon. Mason resolves the dramatic question, but without alleviating Waldeen of her doubts; Waldeen’s “flying leap” (178) might only indicate that Waldeen has surrendered to the ever-present possibility of loss.

If Mason’s skill is her ability to write suspenseful stories in which the stakes are high, what are her gifts? Behind the mastery of technique, I think, lies the what. What truth will the author communicate with her skills? In “Graveyard Day”, Mason gives us a woman, so fully on the page we feel we know her, who is afraid of fracture, of family falling apart -the many and various unknown consequences of attachment. But what can Waldeen do? What can any of us do? In going so deep, Mason tells us our own story, even if the details differ.


Mason, Bobbie Ann. “Graveyard Day.” Shiloh. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc, 1982. 165-178.