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Shiloh
Themes and Colors
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Shiloh, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Grief, Love, and Estrangement
For 15 years, Norma Jean’s husband Leroy, a trucker, has mostly lived on the road. After a bad accident, however, he moves home to recuperate. Leroy and Norma Jean, living together full-time for the first time in over a decade, discover that they’re strangers—distant and awkward, unsure of who the other person has become. This is partially due to Leroy’s long absences while trucking, but that’s not the root cause: back when they…
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Gender, Independence, and Power
After Leroy’s trucking accident, his wife Norma Jean becomes their family’s breadwinner, and their gender roles begin to shift. While Leroy is homebound, making crafts and dreaming about homemaking, Norma Jean is out working, lifting weights, taking night classes, and developing an independent life. This shift in gender roles benefits Norma Jean, who becomes empowered to leave an unfulfilling marriage and seek a better life. But it creates tremendous anxiety in Leroy, who feels…
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History and the Past
Norma Jean and Leroy have not had an easy marriage. They wed when Norma Jean was 18 and pregnant, and their son Randy died months after he was born. Rather than grieving together, they retreated into themselves; Leroy went out on the road as a trucker while Norma Jean stayed home alone. But now Leroy realizes that he and Norma Jean have grown apart and he’s determined to revive their marriage. Instead of working through…
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