Shiloh

Shiloh is a story mainly about Mason's thinking about marriage. However, I believe Mason's thinking resonates with many people's opinion about men and women's relationship in marriages. In this story, Leroy wonders whether it is "feminism" that makes Norma Jean choose to leave him rather than keep staying with him like she did in the past fifteen years. He is right but still thinking on the surface.

Finally, he realizes something deeper in their marriage--"And the real inner workings of a marriage, like most of history, have escaped him."

But Leroy's thinking only stops there. Later, Norma Jean leaves him and walks toward the bluff. It's not clear whether she chooses to kill herself there or her action is just a symbol which shows how irreparable their marriage and love is.The ending makes readers keep thinking and looking for their answers.

Personally, their dead marriage reminds me of a famous saying, "I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you."

Before the accident, Leroy was a busy man who was strong in front of any difficulty. Even when their infant died, they didn't leave but supported each other. He was the hero and the moral support in Norma Jean's mind. With Leroy, Norma Jean could be protected and look forward to the future. But when he came back from the accident, he stays home by deserting his ideas. Norma Jean becomes the person who supports their family and has to bear the hero in her mind to become the one she hates. She is never the one who was with her hero. Although they are still young and have time to change, their inner worlds change. Yes, they both change actually although their appearances look almost the same, which leads to the change of their relationship.

Well goes an old saying about marriage by Lu Xun, a Chinese famous writer, "dream is good; money is necessary; and women will be pregnant." In Shiloh, they lose main source of income, they lose their child and they lose their dream they once had. Their marriage is dead in fact because nothing can maintain their old love.