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Bobbie Ann Mason's writing views life through the lens of Kentucky settings and national pop culture developments. In Mason's works, the motif of cemeteries indicates the establishment of connections between people, both on an individual and a national level. Cemeteries become a foundation for new life and a new understanding of identity. In the short stories "Shiloh" and "Graveyard Day," the memoir Clear Springs, and the novel In Country, Mason transforms the specifically Southern landscape and heritage into a new American identity that struggles with its past triumphs and failures. Using the tradition and rituals of Southern grave decoration, Mason identifies cemeteries as a meeting place where the living must confront their past and attempt to move into the future.
Mason's short story "Graveyard Day" demonstrates her knowledge of the grave decoration tradition.1 The story's title stems from a tradition that has existed in the South since the Civil War. As Vietnam veteran W. D. Ehrhart states, "Viet Nam veterans are not unique in the burdens they have had to bear.... Half the United States, more or less, lost the Civil War."2 These services, initially in honor of Confederate soldiers, were held at cemeteries or on church grounds and are known as "Confederate Memorial Day," "Decoration Day," "homecomings," and "Grave Decoration Day," among others names.3
In "Cemetery Decoration Customs in the American South," Lynwood Montell focuses on the development of specifically Southern customs surrounding graveyard rituals.4 Montell mentions the use of photographs on tombstones, like that of Mason's great-great-grandfather, William E Arnett (Clear Springs 173). Montell explains that because most cemeteries in the South began as family cemeteries, "many of the rural people of the South still come together on a community basis once or twice each year to clean and decorate the cemetery, and to share in fellowship around the graves of their deceased family members and friends" (117). Montell also identifies the ritual behind the "cemetery cleanings" that extend beyond yard work and preservation of the cemetery: "The group often brings basket lunches, as there is a communal sharing of food, which is prepared by the women, some of whom are present at the cemetery and take active parts in raking or sweeping the grounds. Reminiscing about former times is the order of...