Shiloh

About the Short Story

“Shiloh” is a short story that follows married couple Leroy and Norma Jean Moffitt. Leroy and Norma Jean have been married for sixteen years and got married when they were just eighteen years old. The story is told through Leroy’s point-of-view, and we see that Leroy thinks about the world in simple terms, including his marriage. During their marriage, Leroy was never home because he worked as a truck driver, until he was injured four months ago. Because of his injury, Leroy no longer works as a truck driver, and he is always home, and sees Norma Jean more often. Norma Jean works in cosmetics at Rexall Drugstore. Leroy feels much love for his wife, but he wonders if Norma Jean feels the same type of affection towards him. He wonders if the death of Randy, their four-month-old son, by SIDS, is the reason for Norma Jean’s apparent lack of affection.

Throughout the story, Leroy promises to build Norma Jean a log cabin, but she is disinterested in this idea. He realizes that Norma Jean enrolled in school, cooking exotic foods, more concerned with fitness, and writing her own music instead of playing it; at this moment, he realizes how much Norma Jean has changed. His mother-in-law Mabel makes matters worse because of her disapproving behavior towards Leroy, which she shows because he impregnated her daughter. She is very critical towards Leroy; for example, she criticizes him for sewing because it is “not a manly activity”. She is also critical of her own daughter after catching her smoking. She constantly suggests going to Shiloh, a civil war battlefield where her and her late husband went on their honeymoon. They finally leave to go to Shiloh, and there is awkward silence throughout the car ride. Finally, Norma Jean tells Leroy she is going to leave him while they are on their trip to Shiloh because she does not know or love him. Norma Jean states that they “failed to start over”.

Impact

I really liked this story because I felt like I could identify with it so well. I know what it is like to be in Leroy’s shoes, to feel the pain of growing apart from someone I really cared about. I have felt this feeling more than once in my life. I get close to someone, then I start to feel like I am bothersome to that person, then we have less to say to each other, and the silence just ends our friendship. One significant example in my life is when I made a friend while working at ShopRite, and we would just get closer as we worked together. I felt like I had a really good friend, and our friendship would be with us outside of work. I started to feel more than friendly feelings towards him. He was the reason to stay at my horrible, low-paying job. Unfortunately, I could not stay because my workload for school was becoming too much, so I left and would be back when school was over. I was hoping that we could keep in contact while I was gone, but I was afraid to talk to him, even though I kept thinking about him. I would have dreams about him. When school was over and I came back, it felt like we had our old friendship back in the beginning. However, after he went away on vacation, we were not as friendly as we used to be, and we just gradually stopped talking to each other. There were even moments where he was condescending towards me for being a sensitive person. Maybe this was not as real as I thought it was. I left ShopRite for the last time for school again, and we never spoke again.

When I read “Shiloh”, I identified so well with Leroy. I knew what it was like to have feelings for someone who was outgrowing me. Leroy was in a marriage that he thought was his “happily ever after”, but it turned out that what he thought was there was not actually the love and romance he thought was there. However, I noticed while reading the text Leroy’s way of simple thinking. I believe that Leroy really did love Norma Jean, but was incapable of separating his experiences with Norma Jean from his feelings. Towards the end of the story, he recalls his and Norma Jean’s entire relationship about how they had a baby and got married at eighteen and now they were here at Shiloh. He does not really talk about how he feels about Norma Jean. In other words, he thinks just because he married and had a baby with Norma Jean that he loves her.

When I read this, I thought that maybe there was no pure love between them that he thought was there. I reflected back on my relationship with my co-worker, and I knew that there was something there that I did not feel with most guys, and it was based on who he was as a person. I was really attracted to his personality in which he could present himself as tough, but he was actually a nice person. Furthermore, as we got to know each other, I discovered we had more in common than I thought, and we always looked out for each other at work. He was also a fun person to be around. Although he could be a really nice person, that nice person was not there as often as I thought it could be. In that respect, I feel that mine and Leroy’s experiences are different because I really got to know this guy and liked who he was as a person, whereas I feel like Leroy never got to know Norma Jean because he was always away. At the same time, I liked the person I thought he was rather than who he actually was because he was not as nice as I thought he was. I feel Leroy felt the same way when he was in love with who Norma Jean used to be, but she was not her old self who Leroy thought she would be.

Values

Therefore, the value “Shiloh” teaches is that feelings between two people are not simply based on experience. Although experiences will help feelings develop between two people, they should not serve as the reason two people share feelings for each other. For two people to have a feeling of companionship with each another, it is important that they get to know each other in the process of experiencing the world. If two people never really got to know each other, they were never really friends or lovers in the first place. Furthermore, if one is not around or does not maintain communication to get to know someone else, they will never really be friends or lovers. Thus, friendship must be based on getting to knowing each other and mutual understanding, which is not simply based on experience; furthermore, the friendship must be maintained even while two people are distant from each other.

Significance to My Students

“Shiloh” teaches students that friendship is based on so much more than just playing with each other during recess or free time. In other words, to truly become friends with other students, they must know who they are as people. When the students were younger, they were probably only friends with each other because they played with each other at recess or because they liked the toys they had. However, when they reach fifth grade, the concept of friendship becomes more complex than that. It is based on them getting to know each other and liking who they are as people. In other words, it is based on how they can make an impact on each other and who will treat them with compassion because they like who they are as a person.

Furthermore, it is based on how they maintain that friendship even when they are distant from each other. Again, these students have probably formed friendships in earlier grades that are only based on playing with each other during recess or the toys they have. Unfortunately, most of those friendships probably will not follow them to fifth grade because they are not around each other as often. Some students will probably be distraught over these lost friendships. As a teacher and guidance counselor, I know it is important to remind students that they will make new friendships in fifth grade that will last longer and mean more than those that were formed in earlier grades because they will get to know their new friends better than their old ones. However, a few of those friendships last into later childhood because they got to know each other as they were having their early childhood experience together, and they should be thankful for those friendships that lasted them into fifth grade.