Shiloh Summary

This story’s setting takes place in Western Kentucky in a small town. “Shiloh” is told through the view point of Leroy Moffitt. The setting in the story also can be considered in determining the overall theme of the story, and that is that people change as their environments change or are not willing to adapt to change which causes for a hard or tense situations. The change in environment in the story changes Norma because her husband is a truck driver and she goes extraneous amounts of time without him and she has taken on hobbies and classes to keep her busy when he is gone. However, when he is home, since he has not adapted as well to Norma’s changes, their marriage begins to deteriorate. He begins to realize she has had to compensate and …show more content…
He has an accident at work and that causes a major set back and he is stuck at home for three months recovering from this accident. Leroy gets somewhat off the right track in life and is confused and upset and picks up bad habits like, drinking and smoking. While, he also gets some ease in driving around town to look at houses and to buy marijuana, plans to build a log house, and does projects to take up his time. Leroy and Norma have grown apart to the point where it is hard to even imagine they were married because their priorities and thoughts have changed because of the circumstances. He wants to build his wife a log house because he longs for her affection and wants to get rekindle their love and get things back to how they were before life and work got in the way. The significance of the battlefield setting in Shiloh is that it could be related to their marriage being a battlefield and it is the end of the line and Norma wants out. The picnic at the cemetery where people are deceased ironically could relate to their marriage as being dead, and Norma Jean tells Leroy exactly what has been going on in her mind and how she