Shiloh:Lifes Transion Goodbye Norma Jean

Bobby Ann Mason’s Shiloh chronicles the lives of three characters. Leroy Moffit, his wife Norma Jean and her mother Mable Beasley. The story takes place in the rural community of Paducah, KY. All three characters are ordinary working class individuals and become symbols of the past, present and future. Leroy a truck driver, becomes a symbol of the present. He wants to build Norma Jean a log cabin the dream house that she never had. That of course would make him the king of his castle and very useful around the house. Which of course is not the case. Leroy seems stuck in a rut. Life before the accident, and life after the accident. As a truck driver he took speed on the road so he could keep a fast pace. In doing so he finds himself missing out on life and unknown to him in a marriage that is dissolving a little every day until it totally dissolves. After the accident he decides to slow down mellow out and enjoy the life he’s been missing. He does this by smoking pot on the couch and listening to Norma Jean play the organ. Even though it puts him in a simpler time of the sixties when he and Norma Jean were young teenagers married just out of

Norma Jean represents the future. Living in the south in the mid to late 70’s she finds herself somewhere in the role of the traditional wife and influenced by the women’s liberation movement. Traditionally the husband is the bread winner in the family and the head of the house. This is no longer the case. After the accident all Leroy does is sit around the house smoking pot and making excuses why he can’t go back to work. She tries to prod Leroy to go back to work at one point announcing “Things you could do” and “You could get a job as a guard at Union Carbide”. She also suggests that he could do some carpenter work. You get the feeling that she would be happy if Leroy took some initiative to do something more than just stay around the house. On one visit Mable asks Leroy “What’s that thing?” pointing to a tangle of yarn. “Its my needlepoint” Leroy says. Norma quickly shoves it in a drawer. It probably reminds her of how Leroy managed to get his life tangled up in a big mess. It has now been four months since the accident and Leroy mopes and whines about the house like an overgrown kid she is burdened to take care of after 16 years of marriage. Mable her mother is constantly barging in trying to direct other peoples lives to suit hers. She catches Norma smoking on one of her unannounced visits. This of course becomes a turning point in Norma’s life. As the author announces “Something is happening”. From this point on she begins to distance herself from the past and present and sets her sites on a new future. One without Leroy and perhaps without Mable. Of course when the story starts we see Leroy and Norma Jean in a gym. She takes a active role then in shaping her life by shaping her body and mind. Enrolling in a bodybuilding class and completing it. You can tell she is a hard worker with determination. She works at a pharmacy but goes to night school. Even Leroy knows she gets what she wants. The English classes she takes leads one to believe that they could lead to more classes at the college which could lead to a degree. She longs for more freedom and independence tiring new things. Where she used to cook Leroy his favorite foods like chicken and chocolate pie. She now cooks new foods like Bombay chicken and tacos. She used to stay home . Leroy now finds that she has disappeared in the mourning leaving a cooling place in the bed. When she is working on her English paper for a minute Leroy wants to think they are spending quality time together but realizes that he would “be a fool” to think so, and that it’s a matter of time before he loses her. She seems to be miles away. He is just passing time. She however is not letting time pass her by. You can see a change take place in her. When she comes home from grocery shopping she finds Leroy and Mable talking about Shiloh. Norma gets loud with Mable saying “Who’s going on a honeymoon for Christ sake?” to which Mable replies

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