A White Heron By Sarah Orne Jewett

1824 Words4 Pages

Sarah Orne Jewett was an inspiring, unique author of her time. Her upbringing introduced her to the outdoors and allowed her to develop a passion for nature and being an independent woman. One of her short stories, A White Heron, incorporates these passions of hers but also reflects on her childhood. This story also illustrates the pressures a person can face when faced with new relationships. Sarah Orne Jewett takes her personal life experiences and beliefs to influence the main character, Sylvia, to leave a lasting message of standing up for what is right and preserving nature.
Sarah Orne Jewett was born on September 3, 1849 to a wealthy family in South Berwick, Maine. Both her father and her grandfather were physicians so her upbringing …show more content…

The bird, the white heron, represents the purity of nature and how beautiful it is when it is not tampered with. When Sylvia is tempted to hunt this bird, she awakens very early one morning. As she ventures into the forest, she locates the tallest tree that will let her over look the whole forest. This tree has great representation and is just as symbolic as the heron itself. “The tree seemed to lengthen itself out as she went up, and to reach farther and farther upward. It was like a great main-mast to the voyaging earth; it must truly have been amazed that morning through all its ponderous frame as it felt this …show more content…

Whenever a choice is made then one has to live with the effects of that choice. This leaves an impactful message. Even though Sylvia does not necessarily regret her choice, she wonders what could have been if she had made a different one. Life is full of reliving choices and daydreaming about alternate paths. Her decision was right but it did not leave her completely satisfied. This also connects with Sarah’s outlook on feminism. She tries to illustrate that women do not have to conform to what others expect of them. This was something she did in her own life. Being a female writer was rather uncommon. In fact, her work is more popular nowadays and more recognized nowadays then it ever was before. She stresses the importance of independence standing up for

Show More
Related

  • Fire: Similarities Between White Heron And Fire

    615 Words  | 2 Pages

    Furthermore, they all have an outside threat. The ornithologist might shoot the heron and make it a specimen while the man is suffered from the severe cold weather. In the stories both characters have to deal with the danger from outside world. Sylvia has to climb upon the tree to see where the heron is, the man has to avoid the snow falls from the tree.

    Read More

  • Of Nightingales That Weep by Katherine Paterson

    699 Words  | 2 Pages

    Of Nightingales That Weep Chapter 1 This chapter is about Takiko and her first family home. It tells a lot about her family. They talk about the war in this chapter also. Takiko’s mother decides that she will remarry after her father dies.

    Read More

  • White Oleander, by Janet Fitch

    1877 Words  | 4 Pages

    White Oleander is an exciting novel written by Janet Fitch. It is a novel that describes the life of Astrid, a teen girl that had to experience abuse, sexual awakening, grief and occasionally a glimmer of love. Ingrid Magnussen was Astrid's mother, she would play an important role in Astrid life. It is a novel that describes how Astrid's own life experiences and her own intellectual knowledge influences her mind to become a better person in society. This novel created has a double meaning for me because it helps me to realize that I am able to apply what I have learned from other human beings to better myself. This novel also describes the role of women in a "men's world."

    Read More

  • Dorianne Laux’s “Bird”

    1108 Words  | 3 Pages

    The tile of the poem “Bird” is simple and leads the reader smoothly into the body of the poem, which is contained in a single stanza of twenty lines. Laux immediately begins to describe a red-breasted bird trying to break into her home. She writes, “She tests a low branch, violet blossoms/swaying beside her” and it is interesting to note that Laux refers to the bird as being female (Laux 212). This is the first clue that the bird is a symbol for someone, or a group of people (women). The use of a bird in poetry often signifies freedom, and Laux’s use of the female bird implies female freedom and independence. She follows with an interesting image of the bird’s “beak and breast/held back, claws raking at the pan” and this conjures a mental picture of a bird who is flying not head first into a window, but almost holding herself back even as she flies forward (Laux 212). This makes the bird seem stubborn, and follows with the theme of the independent female.

    Read More

  • The Power of Personality in Toni Cade Bambara's The Lesson

    1415 Words  | 3 Pages

    Sylvia’s being poor influences the way in which she sees other people and feels about them. Sylvia lives in the slums of New York; it is the only life she knows and can realistically relate to. She does not see herself as poor or underprivileged. Rather, she is content with her life, and therefore resistant to change. Sylvia always considered herself and her cousin as "the only ones just right" in the neighborhood, and when an educated woman, Miss Moore, moves into the neighborhood, Sylvia feels threatened. Ms. Moore is threatening to her because she wants Sylvia to look at her low social status as being a bad thing, and Sylvia "doesn’t feature that." This resistance to change leads Sylvia to be very defensive and in turn judgmental. Sylvia is quick to find fl...

    Read More

  • The Meaning of A White Heron

    784 Words  | 2 Pages

    The story " A white Heron" is about a nine-year-old girl named Sylvia. The author starts the cycle/framework by implying through the character's age that Sylvia has a certain innocence that only a young child early in life can possess. This is the first stage in the cycle of human experiences, the innocence stage. Sylvia had moved from the city to the country in order to live with her grandmother when she was eight years old. Sylvia used to live in a crowded and noisy manufacturing town with her parents. After Sylvia moved to the country, she seemed to come alive, like being born again. The fact that the author has Sylvia move from the city to the country shows that Sylvia has entered the second stage in the cycle. The second stage for Sylvia is about her going on a quest in a since where she will figure out who she will become through life experiences, the other stages in the cycle.

    Read More

  • Economic Inequality in Toni Cade Bambara's The Lesson

    1658 Words  | 4 Pages

    Sylvia uses her daydreams as an alternative to situations she doesn't want to deal with, making a sharp distinction between reality as it is and reality as she wants to perceive it. For instance, as they ride in a cab to the toy store, Miss Moore puts Sylvia in charge of the fare and tells her to give the driver ten percent. Instead of figurin...

    Read More

  • Catherine Called Birdy, By Karen Cushman

    713 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hannibal once said, "We will either find a way, or make one!". Being determined and having courage are very important. When you set your mind to anything you will be able to find a way. When you set your mind to something and create a way to do that something, you have courage and determination for not being scared to think of something new. In the book Catherine Called Birdy, by Karen Cushman, the main character Catherine who is fourteen, is unable to escape her Father, lady tasks, and having to wed Shaggy Beard.

    Read More

  • Catherine Called Birdy, By Karen Cushman

    662 Words  | 2 Pages

    George A. Sheehan once declared, “Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be.” Believe in yourself and don’t let anyone change who you know you are.. In the novel Catherine Called Birdy, by Karen Cushman, a 14 year-old girl, Catherine, tries to escape her life to live as she pleases; instead of escape she uses courage and determination to make the best of it.

    Read More

  • A White Heron

    532 Words  | 2 Pages

    Nine-year-old Sylvia is a child who lives in the wood. Her name, ‘‘Sylvia,’’ and her nickname, ‘‘Sylvy,’’ come from the Latin silva meaning ‘‘wood’’ or ‘‘forest.’’ Sylvia lives in the middle of the woods with grandma Tilley and hardly sees anyone else. She remembers when she lived in the city but never wants to return there. However, when she comes across a hunter who is an older man, she enjoys being around another human being and is not sure what to do with the conflicting emotions she starts to feel. He offers to give her money in exchange for giving up the nesting spot of the white heron. She is the only person who can give him what he needs. What she has to think about though is the betrayal of her relationship with nature and whether or not it is worth it. In the end, she does not reveal the heron’s nesting place.

    Read More

  • Critical Analysis of White Heron

    1446 Words  | 3 Pages

    Sylvia was a 9 year old “nature girl” who met a charming ornithologist hunter on a mission to find the allusive white heron. Sylvia was about 8 years old when she moved with her grandmother from the city to a farm, “a good change for a little maid who had tried to grow for eight years in a crowded manufacturing town, but, as for Sylvia herself, it seemed as if she never had been alive at all before she came to live at the farm.” (Jewett, 1884, 1914, qtd in McQuade, et.al., 1999, p. 1641). Sylvia finds the secret, the white heron. Instead of telling the young hunter, she keeps the secret, because in her mind nature is more powerful than her feelings for “the enemy.”

    Read More

  • Solitude In A White Heron

    1795 Words  | 4 Pages

    Throughout the late 19th century following the Industrial Revolution, society became focused on urban life and began to neglect the importance of rural society and nature. In “A White Heron” Sarah Orne Jewett, through Sylvia’s decision to protect the heron, contemplates the importance of nature and rural society. In particular, Jewett employs the cow grazing scene to show the importance of and solitude that Sylvia finds in rural life. When the hunter appears and Sylvia accompanies him on his journey to find the bird, his actions and speech reveal the destructiveness of urban society on nature. The scene when Sylvia climbs the tree to find the heron, initially in order to please the hunter and satisfy her new love for him, shows her realization

    Read More

  • Feminism In The White Heron

    1606 Words  | 4 Pages

    “Perhaps the most obvious meaning of "’A White Heron’" comes from the female creation, or re-creation, myth Jewett offers. The story presents a little girl whose world is entirely female. No brother, father, uncle, or grandfather lives in it; the men have feuded and left or died. Only she and her grandmother inhabit the rural paradise to which the child was removed after spending the first eight years of her life in a noisy manmade mill-town…In the country with her grandmother she is safe. Named Sylvia (Latin for "woods")” (Ammons

    Read More

  • North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

    1973 Words  | 4 Pages

    The nineteenth century was a time of economic, technologic, and population growth. These changes created problems in everyone’s daily lives. Two examples of things that affected the lives of many were disease and sanitation. Disease and sanitation led to high mortality rates in Nineteenth- Century England. This relates to North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell as it takes place during nineteenth century England and multiple characters died presumably due to disease.

    Read More

  • The Differences and Similarities Between Caged Bird and Still I Rise

    1327 Words  | 3 Pages

    bird as the metaphor of the poem to get the message of the poem across

    Read More

More about A White Heron By Sarah Orne Jewett

Open Document