You Can't Spell "Ambiguity" Without Spelling an Anagram of "Yam"

My first take on the ending of “Shiloh” was quite optimistic. In my mind, Norma Jean truly was beckoning to Leroy, a gesture maybe spurred on by some beauty of the scenery. The last line switched rapidly to a description of the sky (“The sky is unusually pale”) which is then linked to Mabel’s ruffle—“the color of the dust ruffle Mabel made for their bed")—, a symbol of Mabel’s love for both Shiloh and her late husband; This connection made me feel that my initial instinct about the situation had been confirmed. In my mind, the deliberate ambiguity of Norma Jean’s gestures served to make a subtle, coy ending.

And then I thought about it. I realized that it was more likely that the author, Bobbie Ann Mason, was trying to emphasize the fact that, even then, after years of marriage, at the very end of their relationship, Leroy still could not understand Norma Jean’s actions. Leroy—who is still hopeful about his and Norma Jean’s marriage, even after she essentially breaks up with him—gets a jarring slap from reality when he realizes how unlikely it is that she is actually waving to him. Empathizing with the Leroy’s sinking heart, I now saw the description of the sky as ominous. Now, my mind focused more on the fact that the sky is described as pale—which does not have a very uplifting connotation—rather than the fact that the sky is described at all. Similarly, the reference to Mabel brings to mind all the problems in their marriage, she having been an instigator of conflict: she never liked Leroy, she made deliberately hurtful comments about dead babies and their mothers’ neglect, interfered in Norma Jean’s and Leroy’s relationship, and tried to impose her own marriage onto their deteriorating relationship. The mention of Mabel is not a happy thing at all.

Then I started to realize that maybe Norma Jean’s leaving Leroy was the happiest ending the reader could hope for. In essence, she is gaining freedoms she was never able to enjoy, first being controlled by her parents, then being hindered by an unexpected pregnancy and the husband that came with it. Without Leroy, she is free to take her classes and do her exercises and—well, whatever she wants. Again, the ending was happy for me.

I re-read the ending paragraph with this new thought in mind. It did not seem right. Like always, my mind decided to ruin things for me and turned something happy into somethiProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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terrible. When re-reading the excerpt, Norma Jean was no longer beckoning—or even doing an exercise—but rather preparing to jump off the bluff, committing suicide. Although unhappy, this seemed like a more appropriate action for the setting, the grisly battleground of Shiloh where the Confederacy and the Union each lost over 10,000 men. In that battle, there was no real winner. Though the Union technically claimed victory in the battle—after losing more men in that battle than in all other Civil War battles up to that point—, General Grant’s reputation was butchered in the North. Both sides felt the sting of loss over the heavy casualties, and neither side left with a victorious glow. The aftermath of the battle between Leroy and Norma Jean did not seem to have any more luck. Leroy has lost his wife—figuratively, and possibly literally—and if Norma Jean was indeed preparing to jump, she clearly felt that she too had lost what was important to her.

After stretching my brain to its limits and using my head until it hurt (though, admittedly, that did not take a great deal of time), thinking about the ambiguity of the ending and considering the four scenarios I have proposed, I have only been able to make one conclusion for certain: Bobbie Ann Mason is a jerk.


Re: the title
I intended to say "You can't spell 'ambiguity' without spelling" and then finding a word in ambiguity that was synonymous with "bad" or "annoying" or "a-terrible-literary-device". Nothing really came to mind. I figured "Yam" was just as good.

Also, I've tried to edit this about ten times now and I can't get rid of the weird html script that shows up in the middle of my essays when I view them.

Distraction from the Divine

Parker is wrought with internal conflict, stemming from a lack of self-understanding—an identity crisis, of sorts. He, more than anyone—or anything—else, is his biggest puzzle: “it was himself he could not understand.” Given the context of the story, it is clear that his lack of identity is in some way related to his lack of religion, though Parker himself, a dogged unbeliever, would never admit it. The purposelessness and emptiness that Parker feels, never thinking “that there was anything out of the ordinary about the fact that he existed” and “never [feeling] the least motion of wonder in himself“ connotes spiritual inadequacy. With no true understanding of who he is and no notion of what he wants to become, Parker takes to imitating the one person—a circus performer—who instilled in him the wonder that he could not find in himself. The inspiration came in the form of tattoos, which, on his role model, looked like an “arabesque of men and beasts and flowers.” Parker, however, did not have a clear enough understanding of himself to find that same satisfaction in his own body art and achieve the same effect; instead, he “would be satisfied with each tattoo about a month, then something about it that had attracted him would wear off.” He seems to be trying to fill his spiritual, or at least internal, emptiness by altering his physical appearance. Not surprisingly, the effects of these superficial alterations are short-lived.

Though Parker covers his entire front with tattoos, he has no interest in having tattoos on his back; this lack of interest, which is brought up many times, is abstractly indicative of his struggle with religion. Parker denies and ignores any part of him that he cannot directly see, whether it is his backside or his character. One could go as far as saying that his back is an analogue for his soul, blank and empty, always a part of him but out of immediate sight.

Parker’s denial of religion is a constant throughout his life; he—literally—runs from religion. When he was young, his mother tried to trick him into going to a church for an intervention, but when “he saw the big lighted church, he jerked out of her grasp and ran. The next day he lied about his age and joined the navy.” Years later, when he crashes a tractor into a tree, “the tree burst into flame.” Parker’s shoes fly from his feet, and so, shoeless like Moses, he is left to witness his own personalProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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urning bush. Immediately, Parker “took off” in his truck and “drove past his house on the embankment and straight for the city, fifty miles distant.” His running, however, does not help him. He cannot run from God and he cannot run from himself.

He can, however, run from his wife. Throughout the story, Parker wonders why he ever married his wife, repeatedly thinking about how he “couldn’t understand why he stayed with her” considering she was “both ugly and pregnant and no cook.” Though he never consciously realizes it, Parker stays with his wife because she provides a constant source of external conflict. The concrete conflict that she brings—mostly stemming from her opposing his religious views, or lack thereof—is easier to deal with than his personal crisis regarding his own self-worth, identity, and spirituality. When dealing with his internal conflict in the cot in town, he “longed miserably for Sarah Ruth. Her sharp tongue and icepick eyes were the only comfort he could ring to mind.” Clearly these characteristics of Sarah Ruth are not true comforts; rather, they are comparatively comfortable distractions from his personal dilemma.

When he is away, Parker has the image of Christ tattooed onto his back, superficially and impulsively trying to fill his soul. Again, he tries to alter is spirit by altering his body. Again, this fails. Only when his wife makes him state his real name does he suddenly feel the “light pouring through him.” Though changing his appearance was never able to change his soul, accepting his name—which means Servant of God—and thus, changing his soul, makes his spirit feel the way he has always wished his body looked: his “spider web soul” turns into “a perfect arabesque of colors, a garden of trees and birds and beasts.” Though Parker’s wife still does not approve of his tattoos, especially the Christ tattoo, which she declares idolatrous, Obadiah Elihue is saved. He accepts his true name (“there he was—who called himself Obadiah Elihue—”) and is able to overcome his previous feeling of purposelessness.