Public Health

Name
Professor
Course
Date
Gender Roles Transformation
In the short story “Shiloh and Other Stories” by Bobbie Ann Mason, it is correct to imply that gender somehow dictates how individuals adapt to changes around them. Leroy Moffitt and Norma Jeans, a married couple, who are the main characters whose gender roles change as they embrace vicissitudes within their marriage and around the town differently.
Both characters approach the aftermath of Leroy’s accident differently. Previously, Norma would always stay at home while Leroy is working as a truck driver, which is the ideal set up of traditional marriage. As Leroy undergoes physical therapy from an accident he was involved in, Norma works out as well to build herself up. She says “I would offer anything if I could build these muscles up” (Mason 1). She also appreciates the socio-economic changes in the town; “they won’t allow you to put up a chalet in any of the first-hand subdivisions,” compared to Leroy who still wants to live in the past planning to build them a log cabin “I am looking forward to building us a log house”(3). Norma works in a drugstore while studying. He states, “…first, you create a lead sentence, and then you split it,” (Mason 6). Leroy, on the other hand, stays at home and involves himself in drug use “Where do you always get this stuff?” (Mason 6).
Bobbie Ann Mason portrays Norma as a character that can embrace modernization, “I did not see her coming. I ju…