Emily Meadows

Dr. Dotterer

English 483

5 March 2010

Bobbie Ann Mason’s Position as a Southern Woman Writer, as Defined by Michael Kreyling

Throughout the history of southern literature, women have often been excluded, therefore

providing men the opportunity to shape the myth that is the south. In recent years however,

female southern writers have emerged to take back what history owes them and present the

reality of the south and the reality of women’s roles in it. Bobbie Ann Mason is able to present

the reality of life for Norma Jean Moffitt in her short story Shiloh, which was written in 1982.

The character of Norma Jean presents a real, not constructed, southern woman who takes her role

as the head of the household when her husband, Leroy, can no longer support the family. Norma

Jean’s ultimate plea for divorce in the end of the story also supports the notion that she is a

strong woman willing to do whatever it takes to make herself happy. As Michael Kreyling

writes in Inventing Southern Literature about current women southern writers, “If their works

share identifying traits, they are the traits of writers united in the complicated enterprise of

getting out from under the burden of cultural assumption (Faulknerian/southern) and trying out

the viability of another (feminist/utopian)” (112). And Mason proves to do just that, ignoring the

roles of the stereotypical southern woman and presenting her character of Norma Jean that

breaks away from the illusionary south and creates a world all her own.

Norma Jean and Leroy Moffitt are not unusual Kentucky residents. They were married
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young, due to a teenage pregnancy, and over the years grew very much apart. Leroy’s job as a

truck driver did not help their relationship, as he was never home, but eventually Norma Jean

grew used to it and their marriage has continued for some time. With Leroy’s long absences,

Norma Jean was able to develop her own sense of womanhood, and live a marriage that hardly

involved a husband other than for added financial support. Although neither partner was fully

aware of their crumbling matrimony there had been many clues over the years to support that it

could only end in disaster. For starters they were only married because they were with child, that

child unfortunately died soon after their marriage, yet they continued to stay together despite the

tragedy. As Mason opens the story, it is discovered that Leroy and Norma Jean have dealt with

another sort of tragedy, as Leroy was recently in an accident and will not be able to drive his

truck again. The accident forces Norma Jean and Leroy to actually spend time under the same

roof, time that does not prove helpful.

As Norma Jean and Leroy continue down a dark path, it becomes even more apparent

that Leroy is not in control of his own life, but that his wife and mother-in-law seem to be having

the most influence. This control that the women characters in the text have is overpowering and

shows the true reality of the south, where a woman and her mama make the rules. Kreyling

presents this same thought in his “Southern Women Writers and the Quentin Thesis” chapter

when he presents Josephine Humphreys’ Rich in Love, written around the same time as Shiloh, to

present the same types of women characters who choose to “befuddle” and “control” the

characters of men. The main character Lucille acts this way “because she understands that the

world in which the men operate is no longer, and probably never was, an essential community

endowed with ‘natural’ meaning but rather a semiotic system sustained by unreflective
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repetition” (118). Just as the character of Lucille is defying the myth of southern culture,

Mason’s Norma Jean is as well. It is no longer the thoughts of the man that is controlling the

family, but the thoughts of the woman.

Norma Jean’s character demonstrates many instances in which she is a true, strong,

southern woman. In the opening paragraphs Mason writes, “…Norma Jean, is working on her

pectorals. She lifts three-pound dumbbells to warm up, then progresses to a twenty-pound

barbell. Standing with her legs apart, she reminds Leroy of Wonder Woman” (958). This

parallel to Wonder Woman shows the strength of the contemporary southern woman. She is

taking an interest in her physical well being rather than worrying about the well being of her

husband. Terry Thompson, Professor of Writing and Linguistics at Georgia Southern University,

adds, “Norma Jean is building her body and developing her stamina. Leroy, on the other hand, is

in a state of physical and emotional atrophy” (par. 5). Norma Jean wishes to work her muscles

until they are much harder, showing that she is a determined woman that makes her own

decisions, decisions that have been occurring all along while Leroy was off driving his truck.

Another instance of Norma Jean’s emerging independence is described later in the text,

“Something is happening. Norma Jean is going to night school. She has graduated from her six-

week body-building course and now she is taking an adult-education course in composition at

Paducah Community College. She spends her evenings outlining paragraphs” (Mason 964). So

not only is Norma Jean working on her physicality, but she is also becoming an educated

woman. Mason writes, “To Leroy, this sounds intimidating” (964). Kreyling presents this in his

concluding point that southern women are beginning to find ways in which to gain control of

their lives. He quotes Linda Wagner Martin, “The governing power of women’s lives must
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ultimately come from finding control, perhaps through some art that allows the redemption of the

past…in the satisfaction and beauty and work of the present” (121). The character of Norma

Jean is finding control of her life in several ways. In getting her body into shape she is preparing

herself to re-enter the dating world. The better she looks the more confidence she will have,

something that will come in handy when she is looking for a new husband. But Norma Jean is

also smart, she realizes that she may need to support herself for some time and therefore begins

to take classes to further her education. Stewart J. Cooke, Professor of English at McGill

University, concurs, “Norma Jean is more concerned…with creating a new self-image that will

enable her to overcome her dependence on her husband…She takes a variety of classes…in an

attempt to convey a new woman, to find a new organizing principle for her life” (par. 4). In

doing all of this she is gaining the confidence that she needs to finally leave Leroy, who is not

amounting to much as it is, and move on with her life.

Another important aspect of the real southern woman that Mason is trying to portray is

her involvement in a community of females where there is less influence from men. Although

Norma Jean’s involvement in classes at the community college is undoubtedly presenting her

joining a community of females, her relationship with her mother does so even more. Kreyling

writes that southern women writers are “[calling] up ‘forgotten’ meaning of precursor texts and

propos[ing] a new configuration of southern ‘community’” (125). This community is one where

the influence of men is hardly recognized. Leroy even admits that his mother-in-law knows

more about Norma Jean than himself when Mason writes, “Mabel, he realizes, must know

Norma Jean better than he does” (965). Leroy has been excluded from his wife’s life to the point

where he knows less of her than the women in her life.

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Leroy also plays an important role as a character that is stuck in the past. Leroy’s

tinkering with craft kits has become excessive showing his true characteristics. As Greg Bentley

puts it for the Southern Literary Journal, “…Leroy’s ritual projects clearly reveal his lack, and

his ‘kits’ represent his adherence to traditional and conventional cultural modes of being” (par.

8). Leroy is unable to see the new south, the one in which his wife is shaping because he is too

stuck in the past, trapped where he will not be able to get out.

There are many instances when Leroy reveals he hardly knows his wife and that she has

changed without him even noticing, but it is his fascination with building her a log cabin that

truly represents his inability to move on. All Leroy focuses on is building Norma Jean a log

cabin, Mason writes, “…but now he is thinking about building a full-scale log house from a kit.

It would be considerably cheaper…Leroy has grown to appreciate how things are put together.

He has begun to realize that in all the years he was on the road he never took time to examine

anything” (959). Leroy is stuck in the past, where things were simple and the south was

different, or so it was thought to be. Now he cannot build a log cabin, nor does Norma Jean want

him to. In fact, when she responds to his constant talk of the cabin she says, “They won’t let you

build a log cabin in any of the new subdivisions” (Mason 959). These subdivisions are a symbol

of the changing times and represent the new south, a developed south. Thompson also writes,

“For Norma Jean, a good old-fashioned house-raising with the men hewing beams while the

women nurse babies and make ice cream is out of the question” (par. 9). Although Leroy is very

much stuck in the past, Norma Jean is going at a fast pace forward into the future without him.

At the end of the story Mason presents a closing paragraph that sums up the Moffitt’s

relationship and its future. Mason writes, “Norma Jean is far away, walking rapidly toward the
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bluff by the river, and he tries to hobble to her” (968). Cooke interprets this event stating, “…

Norma Jean walks quickly through the cemetery at Shiloh, pursued by the limping Leroy, who is

both literally and symbolically unable to keep up with her” (par. 2). All of Leroy’s inadequacies

are being symbolized in his injured leg and are holding him back from reaching his wife. Norma

Jean will continue to move forward in her life, each day becoming more independent. She does

not need Leroy anymore and there is no need for her to continue on in this life, so like she says to

Leroy when they first arrive at Shiloh, she wants to leave him and probably will finally do so

officially.

In the final analysis, Bobbie Ann Mason presents the character of Norma Jean just as

Michael Kreyling claims all Southern women writers would. She is a strong, independent,

southern woman who cares for herself first and foremost. Kreyling presents this thought of new

fiction emerging from Elizabeth Jane Harrison’s thoughts stating, “Her reading of recent fiction

by southern women, black and white, arrives at a kind of utopian community: ‘Despite

difficulties in overcoming the barriers to sex and race equality, female friendship and cooperative

communities become an important part of the new southern garden for these women authors’”

(107-08). And so Norma Jean is a woman who has overcome gender barriers, deciding that just

because she married a man does not mean she cannot leave him. Erik Bledsoe, member of the

staff at University of Tennessee Knoxville states, “…the author is moving away from the

traditional themes and concerns of Southern literature. This is evidence that Southern literature

continues to evolve, often with women writers leading the way. As the literature itself changes,

so too does the way we view that literature and what has come before” (par. 19). Mason presents

herself as just one of many women writers who are reconstructing the myth of the south and its
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culture, so that the future will begin to question the past and the truth of the south will finally be

revealed.

Works Cited

Bentley, Greg. "The Wounded King: Bobbie Ann Mason's "Shiloh" and Marginalized

Male Subjectivity." Southern Literary Journal 37.1 (2004): 144-161. Academic

Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 28 Feb. 2010. This source focuses on the

character of Leroy and the inadequacies that are explored within his character. It

explores the ways in which Norma Jean and her mother exclude him from

decisions and also focuses on the fact that Leroy is searching for an old way of

life that does not exist anymore. As Kreyling presented in his text, Leroy is a

male character that is confused by the women in his life and unsure how to adapt

to this new sense of womanhood.

Bledsoe, Erik. "Reading contemporary Southern women writers and changing traditions."

Mississippi Quarterly 50.2 (1997): 375. Humanities International Complete.

EBSCO. Web. 28 Feb. 2010. I will use this article to support Kreyling’s claims

about southern women writers. Bledsoe focuses on the struggles that face

women writers in the south and the new fiction that is emerging and challenging

traditional thoughts about southern women. Its main point is that women writers

are leading the way in changing the views of the traditional south and are
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currently creating some of the most interesting novels in literature.

Cooke, Stewart J. "Mason's Shiloh." Explicator 51.3 (1993): 196. Academic Search

Premier. EBSCO. Web. 28 Feb. 2010. I will use this source to discuss the search

for identity that Bobbie Ann Mason’s character Norma Jean is going through in

the short story “Shiloh.” Cooke focuses on how Norma Jean is able to realize that

she does not need to depend on a man and can leave her marriage without shame.

This supports Kreyling’s argument that women writers are presenting strong-

willed, independent women in their texts written more recently and reconstructing

the myth that is the southern female.

Kreyling, Michael. Inventing Southern Literature. Jackson: University of Mississippi, 1998.

Print. I will use this source to evaluate the short story that I am looking at. I will

combine Michael Kreyling’s critical analysis of southern women writers with Bobbie

Ann Mason. I will be agreeing with Kreyling’s main points and using the short story

Shiloh to support his claims.

Mason, Bobbie A. "Shiloh." The Literature of the American South: a Norton Anthology. Ed.

William L. Andrews. New York: W.W. Norton, 1998. 958-68. Print. This will be my

main source and provide the text that I need to solidify the claims that Michael Kreyling

makes in his book Inventing Southern Literature. I will use this short story to provide

textual support that recent southern women writers have provided literature with a new

southern woman that is independent and does not rely on men.

Thompson, Terry. "Mason's Shiloh." Explicator 54.1 (1995): 54. Academic Search

Premier. EBSCO. Web. 28 Feb. 2010. Although Thompson supports the theory

that Mason is trying to show the new southern woman, attempting to be

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independent and not rely on her husband, he also argues, through Albert Wilhelm,

that Mason does not provide adequate support that her new life would be any

better. This source also focuses on the idea that Leroy’s character, and his dream

to build Norma Jean a log cabin, is a representation of the simple life, or the old

south. Norma Jean of course rejects the whole idea of the log cabin and therefore

asserts that she is a new type of southern woman.