Barden is Professor of American Studies and Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Toledo. In the following essay, he discusses themat ic and stylistic aspects of the story.

The short story "Residents and Transients" is at the center of her 1983 volume Shiloh and Other Stories for a reason. Mason confirmed the story's impor tance in an interview with Wendy Smith in Publisher's Weekly shortly after the collection appeared. "'Residents and Transients' is a focal point for the main theme of Shiloh and Other Stories, which is the tension between hanging on to the past and racing toward the future" (Publisher's Weekly, 30 August, 1985). The story is significant in its own right—it is a jewel of finely-crafted language and dense symbolic atmosphere and it develops several themes that are fundamental to Mason's work.

This essay will explore the theme of the tension between the past...