In Bobbie Ann Mason’s “Shiloh”, after Leroy’s accident in his truck, the pleasant illusion that he is in a perfectly functioning marriage is shattered leaving the reality that he and Norma Jean have ongoing issues that have been hidden and ignored for the majority of their marriage. The log cabin he never builds, the couple’s new hobbies, the baby they lost, the dust ruffle Mabel makes for them, and the trip they take to Shiloh ultimately cause Norma Jean to decide to leave Leroy. “Shiloh” is laden with symbols for the state of Norma Jean and Leroy’s marriage, and each situation introduced since Leroy’s accident forces them to look at how little they know about each other. The house Leroy means to build but never does, is symbolic of how their marriage exists but they never really settle down and made it permanent. Their marriage never gets a solid foundation and Leroy believes the idea of having a house built would validate their marriage, and make it seem more authentic. The shaky foundation is revealed once Leroy gets into his accident and returns to being close to Norma Jean all the time. Also a key issue is the fact that Leroy not only holds onto the idea of building the log cabin someday, he repeatedly ignores Norma Jean when she tells him she really does not want that kind of house, but he keeps saying he will make it. He knows she doesn’t want it, “I’m aiming to build me a log house, soon as I get the time. My wife, though, I don’t think she likes the idea” (302), but he wants the idea of a place that expresses their marriage. Leroy and Norma Jean’s desires don’t sync up, and they fail to address that issue. Their lack of effective communication and productive problem solving is also a factor that leads the marriage to di... ... middle of paper ... ...on’s uses a layer of symbolism built into the events of the story that illustrate what is happening in Leeroy and Norma Jean’s marriage. “Shiloh” demonstrates that one has to communicate openly in order to have a healthy marriage, and acknowledging issues does not hurt a couple either. Another lesson to learn is that part of being human is that change will happen, however, everyone has a choice of whether they will internalize their knowledge and fear change like Leeroy, or experience the world, make change a positive thing and flourish like Norma Jean did. It was not easy for her or comfortable, but sometimes recognizing that situations are harmful and moving towards more beneficial ones requires an unpleasant view. Work Cited Mason, Bobbie Ann. “Shiloh.” Literature: A Pocket Anthology. Ed. R.S. Gwynn. 4th ed. New York: Penguin-Longman, 2009. 300-313. Print.
Bobbie Ann Mason explores a relationship conflict in the short story “Shiloh.” Manson uses a metaphor of craft building as a way to tell the story of Leroy and Norma’s relationship. Craft show how easily an object is build and how a mistake can deform the outcome. In the story “Shiloh, craft building is used to display what takes place between Leroy and Norma. The craft building metaphor symbolizes Leroy wanting to restart his life and Leroy wanting to rebuild his life and Leroy wanting to rebuild his relationship with Norma. The craft building for Leroy to build a Log Cabin also foreshadows the outcome of the relationship.
The changes which have occurred in both of the stories interrupted the false sense of closeness among the couples, serving to spark off long-term problems they had not realized. In "Shiloh", Leroy, is forced to retire to home after injuring his leg in a highway incident. Just like his truck, Leroy, no longer able to make his living as a truck driver, "has flown home to roost". However, he makes little effort to find another alternative to make his living. Realizing that he has missed so many things in life when he was still "on the road, he wanted to enjoy the freedom he had now, and to take more notice of the things happening around him. He no longer wanted to "fly past scenery". His wife, Norma Jean however, fails to acknowledge Leroy's attitude. Expecting Leroy to assume the responsibility of caring for the household, watching him idle around, taking up needlepoint and crafting, agitated Norma Jean.
Shelby Foote's Shiloh is a novel about a real Civil War battle told from the point of view of a few common soldiers, both northern and southern, who fought there. Because he chose to depict the action from these points of view, he limits what can be said of the big picture. If one can ignore that big picture, the book works very well at showing the reader what the experience must have been like for individuals caught up in different parts of the fight. Yet needing to provide some of that picture, Foote has each character present background on specific generals and their actions leading up to Shiloh. This exposition is, for the most part, pretty clumsy and simply detracts from ...
In Jason de León's eye opening and heartbreaking book The Land of Open Graves, we get an indepth ethnological account of the many people who's lives have been shaped in one way or another by the Mexican-American border, and the weaponization of the inhospitable Sonoran desert. In this section of border crossing, 4 million undocumented migrants have been arrested (more than one third of all immigration arrests), and countless others have tried, failed, succeeded or died (1). De León also frames Border Patrol as a tool of state-sponsored structural violence and highlights the horrendous after effects of free trade policies for tens of millions of immigrants seeking to regain what they had lost. The author also details the ethical and moral
Leroy arrives home from a drive and finds Norma Jean in tears.” (Mason p. 50). Norma
Recently, I saw a movie about female tennis champion – Billie Jean King, and although I have never been into the feminism (neither can I say that I quite understand it), her character woke up some other kind of sensitivity in me. After this – to me significant change – I could not help myself not to notice different approaches of John Steinbeck and Kay Boyle to the similar thematic. They both deal with marital relationships and it was quite interesting to view lives of ordinary married couples through both “male” and “female eyes”. While Steinbeck opens his story describing the Salinas Valley in December metaphorically referring to the Elisa’s character, Boyle jumps directly to Mrs. Ames’s inner world. Although both writers give us pretty clear picture of their characters, Boyle does it with more emotions aiming our feelings immediately, unlike Steinbeck who leaves us more space to think about Elisa Allen.
Porter, Katherine Anne. “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall.” Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. Fort Worth: Harcourt, 2000.
This is story is told in the first person by Leroy Moffitt. He is the main character who deals with conflicts within himself, his wife, and the environment around him. Shiloh first begins discussing how Norma Jean Moffitt (one of the main characters) is working at transforming her body by excessively working out. Leroy Mallard, her husband, had been a truck driver 15 years of their marriage. Now he is no longer driving truck, has suffered a highway injury to his leg and is in a wheel chair at home.
Zora Neale Hurston has been married and divorced twice, which assisted her in developing Joe and Missy May’s marriage. Hurston’s rocky marriage occurred just prior to the writing of “The Gilded Six-Bits” which portrays a marriage replete with infidelity and hatred. Missy May’s infidelity tests the strength of her marriage with Joe, which ultimately succeeds the trials and tribulations. Perhaps Hurston spared Joe and Missy May’s marriage to prove to herself that marriages can stand through infidelity, because neither of her marriages continued through the hardships. Hurston saw marriage as an important commitment capable of forgiveness and recommitment. Hurston creates Joe, as the character that forgives and forgets, possibly this is what she expected or desired in her own husbands. Hurston uses her own life experiences to depict her characters a...
Norma’s mother was a flapper so she was not one to hold to the social conventions of the times; however, because she was raised in a devout Mormon household, race would be the area where she would not budge. It was no surprise to me that Norma would also learn to snub her nose at those conventions that seemed ludicrous to her, such as whites not associating with blacks, but Norma’s decision to fraternize with a man of color in spite of her mother’s stance, would bring to the forefront what C. Wright Mills, in his article The Promise, coined as personal troubles and issues. For Norma, choosing to be involved with June’s father would bring up issues of character surrounding the social acceptability of a white girl consorting with a black man, especially when everywhere she looked; society, would shout unequivocally that it was not acceptable (1959). So, when she discovers that she is pregnant, she finds herself in quite the predicament. Norma is a walking contradiction in my opinion. Although there is no doubt in my mind that she loved her children, her desire for autonomy and a name, made it impossible for her to navigate the minefields of race, thanks to the Hollywood elite who would hang the framework through which Norma would
As for the analysis of the book itself, although the author aims toward providing a chronicle of two years in the lives of the two brothers, he actually ends up writing more about their mother. He discusses LaJoe's parents, how they met and married and why they moved to Horner. He depicts LaJoe as an extremely kind-hearted yet tough woman who will do anything to help not only her own family, but all the neighborhood children as well. LaJoe feeds and cares for many of the neighborhood children. For this, she is rare and special in an environment of black mothers who are prostitutes and drug addicts. She sticks by her children when most mothers would be ashamed and disown them. I finished this book feeling a great deal of respect and admiration for LaJoe and everytihg she went through.
In the story "Shiloh" by Bobbie Ann Mason, The reader gets different points of view and different feelings about the characters and the story. In this story the narrator explains how time and distance can create a gap between two people. It also talks about how naïve Leroy really is and also how self-centered he is. It allows the reader to understand that sometimes in doing something good people could be doing something that hurts others.
Marie, who is a product of an abusive family, is influenced by her past, as she perceives the relationship between Callie and her son, Bo. Saunders writes, describing Marie’s childhood experiences, “At least she’d [Marie] never locked on of them [her children] in a closet while entertaining a literal gravedigger in the parlor” (174). Marie’s mother did not embody the traditional traits of a maternal fig...
The symbols and language used in “Battle Royal” allow readers to understand the concept of being black in America; fighting for equality. Symbols such as the white blindfold, stripper, and battle itself all give a suggestion about how the unnamed protagonist felt, but more importantly, Ralph Ellison’s “Battle Royal” depicts the difficult struggles facing the black man in what’s supposed to be a post-slavery era.
	In Battleground, Stephen Bates narrates the account of a court case in a small Tennessee town. The court case started with a mother helping her child with a reading assignment. This mother could not believe what she was reading. This mother’s name was Vicki Frost, who was a home keeper. Frost went to the school and told the principal what she thought about the books. She believed that the books went against everything she taught her children. She believed Satan wrote these books. She took her children out of class during reading time, from that point on. When the school told her that her children would fail if they didn’t attend class, Frost was astounded. After many battles with the local school, she took her case to court. The school said the books were appropriate for the children to read, and if parents did not agree they could transfer their children to another school. Both sides had different organizations backing them. The case gained national attention. The federal court sided with the school district in the end, but Vicki Frost did raise attention on how schoolbooks are chosen for our public schools.