The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman takes the traditional coming-of-age of age story and flips it on its head. While the book is filled to the brim with characters symbolically “walking the line between life and death,” dead celebrities (ghouls) trying to eat living children, and a two-thousand-year-old Roman ghost, The Graveyard Book also appeals to themes and theories, namely, social connection theory. This theory refers to the experience of feeling close and connected to others and is dictated by the quality and number of meaningful relationships one has with family, friends, and acquaintances.
The story follows a young boy named Nobody, or Bod for short. Bod has no human parents because they were killed by a man named Jack when Bod was about a year old. As such he lives the first decade of his life being raised by Ms. Owens, a ghost from the graveyard, and Silas, a being that walks the line between life and death. Living as a quasi-ghost was difficult for Bod; He was not allowed to leave the graveyard for most of his childhood, resulting in him ever only making a single human friend — Scarlett. Despite having several ghostly beings that would gladly call him family, Bod’s lack of real human contact made him feel incredibly isolated. Unfortunately Silas, the man who acted as a strong fatherly figure for Bod, could not quench the feeling of isolation Bod experienced. Bod explains, “…he wanted to embrace his guardian (Silas)… but the action was unthinkable… There were people you could hug, and then there was Silas” (Gaiman 82). Nevertheless, Bod did have the Owens family to turn to if he needed someone, but they were only two people.
This dynamic is where the concept of social connection theory comes into play. Many of Bod’s tendencies can be linked to this because, according to this theory, “When we’re cared for as children, we’re more likely to have healthy, secure attachments as we get older” (Berkeley 2017). As said by BE, “Bod’s childhood was lacking these connections, which is why he felt isolated and unappeased in the graveyard.”
