"Shiloh" employs a third-person limited omniscient point of view. This means that the narrator is not a participant in the events that take place but that the narrator does know and report on the thoughts and feelings of just one character: Leroy Moffitt.

For instance, the narrator tells us, "Leroy has been home in Kentucky for three months, and his leg is almost healed, but the accident frightened him and he does not want to drive any more long hauls." He has realizations about his life as a truck driver, how "he never took time to examine anything." We learn about Leroy's memories of the early years of his marriage to Norma Jean, including the death of their baby, Randy, due to SIDS, and how they never really talk about him. Despite what the doctors told him then, that "it just happens sometimes," in reality, "nobody knows anything, Leroy thinks." Again, we get inside access to Leroy's personal thoughts and feelings that he does not share aloud.

Later, we learn that he drives around the new housing developments, considering the log cabin house he wants to build (which Norma Jean opposes). Leroy considers trying to bridge the apparent emotional gap he now feels between himself and Norma Jean, thinking that "they could become reacquainted," but he is stoned, and when she goes to the kitchen, he forgets. We don't know what is going on in Norma Jean's head; we only know what Leroy thinks she's thinking until she finally tells him, "I want to leave you." This limited omniscience helps to bring the reader emotionally closer to Leroy, because all the information we get about other characters is filtered through his consciousness. He suspects that his wife may want to leave him, but he doesn't really know what to do about it.