The White Heron

Neda Tavana

Professor Llimcolioc

20 April 2008

Nature that Brings Happiness

…When the great world for the first time puts out a hand to her, must she thrust it aside for a bird's sake?

Within the short story A White Heron, by Sarah Orne Jewett, she uses repetition and symbolic terms as she conveys a young girl’s coming of age while she encounters a decision between her grace and prosperity. Evidence of this binary begins in the opening of the short story when the author represents the young girl in the woods with her cow, which signifies her love for nature. The author also expresses the young girl’s behavior as childish in the beginning of the story, and responds to it at the end of the story to show the girls growth in maturity. Furthermore, Jewett uses terms such as white, which is repeated regularly throughout the story with a deeper meaning. Questions are withheld in the readers mind when the author introduces a handsome woodsman offering prosperity to the young girl and her family, which presents an opportunity for the girl to give up her grace or love for nature. In other words, he asks the young girl to point him towards a rare bird, the white heron, in return for the money her family is in need of. Although the girl is able to locate the bird which she finds the most sensational, she also contemplates whether she should give up the beautiful bird’s life to the woodsman. Her decision will also reflect her coming of age.

To further analyze this story, we must first understand the main characters grace consists of her compassion towards nature. The author communicates the story in third person prospective, in which the third person is knowledgeable of the characters thoughts and actions. The story opens with the third person representing the girl away from the city which she was born in, and into the woods of a country which she appreciates nature. “… it seemed as if she never had been alive at all before she came to live at the farm.” This is significant because it shows the young girl, Sylvia’s appreciation for nature; her grace. Another example is when Jewett acknowledges a young eight year old girl, who shares a familiar relationship with her cow as they stroll through the woods. Although the cow sometimes strays in its own path, the girl’s frustration is always subsided with compassion for her cow. “Though this chase had been so long that the wary animal herself had given an unusual signal of her whereabouts, Sylvia had only laughed when she came upon Mistress Moolly at the swamp-side, and urged her affectionately homeward with a twig of birch leaves.” Both of these examples from the text show a connection between Sylvia and her love for nature.

Further into the story the author presents a woodsman. While Sylvia is in the woods with her friend cow, she is frightened by the man, and the author compares him to the characters previous experience with another boy whom she is scared of. The author also refers to the woodman’s whistle as aggressive and compares it to a bird’s friendly whistle. “Not a bird's-whistle, which would have a sort of friendliness, but a boy's whistle, determined, and somewhat aggressive.” At this point, we can analyze that the author is foreshadowing Sylvia’s oneness with nature, specifically, the white Heron bird. Furthermore, through these symbolic terms, the woodsman is represented as a kind of fallacy in the young girl’s life. In addition, the woodsman asks the young girl to point him towards a rare bird, the white heron, in return for the money her family is in need of. Although, the prosperity the man offers sounds delightful, the girl who is able to locate the bird which she finds the most sensational also contemplates whether she should give up the beautiful bird’s life to the woodsman.

Jewett uses the term “bird” about sixteen times within her text to enhance the white Herons importance, and value. Again, we can look back to the author’s description of a birds whistle, referred to as friendly. As well, the author also mentions the term “white” which is symbolic for pure or can represent happiness. This comes from the traditional aspect of