I really enjoyed reading this short story by Bobbie Anne Mason. I can actually relate to both of the main characters, Leroy and Norma Jean. For some reason, reading about people’s relationships really intrigues me. Whether its fiction or nonfiction, the way people handle disappointments, betrayal, and heartbreak fascinates me. It’s almost like watching reality T.V in a way; you want to see how people handle certain situations so you can compare how you would react. I like this story because it’s real. It’s something that probably happens often in marriages. When I was reading this story I found myself really feeling bad for Leroy. The poor man has a steel pin in his hip, a bad knee, no job, his past time hobby is making arts and crafts, his wife is checking out of the relationship, and nobody wants to live in his stupid log cabin. His wife, Norma Jean, seems to be having a somewhat midlife crisis. She doesn’t seem to care that her husband is now home all the time; in fact it seems to annoy her. I liked it at the end when she says, “In some ways, a woman prefers a man who wonders.” It’s just like that old saying, “nice guys finish last.” It’s so true. At the end when Norma Jean tells Leroy she’s leaving him, I couldn’t help but wonder if that might one day happen to me. What if someone you’re with just doesn’t want you anymore? What if they’re like Norma Jean and they aren’t even trying anymore? To be honest, it terrifies me to invest half my life with someone and then get left by the curb side. I guess I understand why people don’t get married.
Wow. After reading Megan’s post, I could not help but identify with just about every point she touched on. In class, many of our classmates sympathized with Norma Jean, despite the fact that she was not the narrating character. I can totally understand why one would identify with her, but Leroy’s character is pitiful. My heart broke for him. He not only is physically handicapped, but the death of his baby left him emotionally wounded as well.
ReplyDeleteI, like Megan, thoroughly enjoy reading about the relationships between people—be it relationships between lovers, friends or groups. It’s interesting to me to observe the way people handle crisis. Perhaps I am a bit too critical, but I like to analyze their reactions. In “Shiloh,” Leroy reverts back to the heartache caused by incidents in his life as reasons for his being “slack.” He smokes pot, refuses to work (at the beginning of their marriage he did not want to work—especially at a job that caused him to stand) and is ignored by his wife. It’s only towards the end of the story that he realizes that he doesn’t actually listen to her. He realizes that she doesn’t want a log cabin.
She does not seem to love him anymore. His wife, the woman who he seems to be falling in love with all over again, has fallen out of love with him. That is heartbreak to add on to his heartbreak. He, as Megan mentioned, seems to be desperately trying to hold on to whatever is left of this marriage while Norma Jean seems to have completely given up on it. The man is quite pitiful as an individual, but when you add on his marriage, he becomes even more so.
First off I wish Mason would have made the ending clearer in the short story “Shiloh,” I think Norma Jean jumps off the bluff but not sure. I figure Shiloh was influential place for her and was not sure if she was going to use that has her reasoning for telling Leroy there that she wanted to end the relationship. I did not see her wanting to end the marriage throughout the story, I thought she was a wife who was scared to stick up to her husband until she had that argument with him and Mabel. Mabel was an influential character in the story because I also felt like Norma Jean would not stick up to her mother either which in the end she did.
ReplyDeleteI never understood why Leroy was always so nonchalant about smoking pot. He cared so much about impressing Norma Jean with the “log cabin” but he never once considered impressing her by not smoking because in the story, Mason adds that Norma Jean has quit smoking and I took the statement as if she was disgusted by it now. If I was Norma Jean I would be ready to leave as well, it seems like she had had enough of Leroy and Maple when she finally broke down to them. Norma Jean still had to work and do household chores even though Leroy had his accident and was home more often than her. She was the “breadwinner” in the family and maybe that finally got the best of her at the end. I still wish the ending was more informative of what happened.
After thinking about the situations Leroy and Norma Jean have been dealt in life, I, like Megan and Barak, have sympathy for Leroy. In the beginning of their marriage Leroy and Norma Jean lost their child. Other than that event, what other tragedy are we told of in Norma Jean's life - her husband can now spend time with her instead of being on the road? Leroy, on the other hand, has suffered an injury that puts him out of work while he's recovering. He tries to take advantage of this new found time to rekindle his relationship with his wife that he lost through his constant absences as a trucker. I, personally, do not sympathize with Norma Jean because I feel that if she didn't want a husband who loves her and wants to build her a house and is enjoying simply being around her for a change, then why did she get married in the first place? To me, she couldn't have it any better off, and yet she casts him away.
ReplyDeleteI honestly feel bad for both Leroy and Norma Jean. It is funny how people can be in love with each other until they are forced to actually spend time together (much like the first time living with a boyfriend of girlfriend; you tend to find out a lot about the other that you originally didn’t know). The downfall of their relationship came with Leroy losing his job. Norma Jean could easily put up with Leroy because she only had to see him for short periods of time, then when she would get tired of him he would be back on the road, giving her time to prepare herself for his next visit. When he is at home for good they have to “re-acquaint” themselves again and discover that they were not who they thought they were. This is evident with Norma Jean’s annoyance of Leroy and Leroy’s blindness to his wife’s desires. The sad part is how long it took for them to realize that they were not right for each other.
ReplyDeleteTo Megan- I definitely understand your points, but I just could not sympathize with LeRoy. I really found him unlikable. I personally thought he was lazy. He sat around and made excuses for not being able to work instead of finding something he could do that would accomodate his disabilty. His wife even offered some suggestions as to what he could do, but he brushed off her ideas. All he cared about was building a log cabin so his wife would be happy. He failed to realize two things: it is hard to afford a new house with no job, and his wife hated the idea of a log cabin. It seemed to me that he never really listened to her until the end when she told him she was leaving him. He only cared about himself. His connections with all of the characters in this story appeared a bit off to me. He had a strange relationship with his mother-in-law and his drug dealer. He even refered to holding his dead child as feeling like a "sack of flour." It is so hard for me to have sympathy for a person who won't do anything to better themselves and would rather complain instead. Norma Jean was definitely the character that deserved sympathy. She had to put up with a dead beat husband with whom she felt forced to marry and an annoying, overbearing mother. Maybe the story actually ended happily for Norma Jean.
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