In the following excerpt, Morphew analyses the character Norma Jean Moffitt in "Shiloh" and briefly discusses the function of military imagery in the story.

Much has been written about the loss of identity experienced by the characters of Bobbie Ann Mason's short stories; the people of Shiloh and Other Stories in particular seem to be confused by the onslaught of pop culture, the media, and other forces of social change. The males, perhaps, seem the more affected, and more ineffectual in their attempts to seize or to create some new center for their lives. The women, at least most of them, react to their frustration and discontent more forcefully; they are or become down-home feminists, and the degree of their feminist responses within their culture is largely determined by education, by economic empowerment, and by age, or by some combination of the three. . . .

It is important to...