Sarah Orne Jewett’s “The White Heron” is a timely piece that depicts the struggle between nature and civilization, between the wild and the modern. The bright, beautiful forests and waters of Northern New England clash with the modern scientific advancements of man. Within her story, she describes a young girl named Sylvie whom is very closely connected with nature itself, grow up in the New England countryside far away from other people, even being described as, “afraid of folks” (670). One of her only friends is a cow named Mistress Moolly, and she often submerges herself within the delicate yet intriguing wildlife around her home. She loves being one with nature and she has even become seriously familiar with the lay of the land as well as most if not …show more content…
all of the creatures that inhabit it with her. Whether it is the birds chirping, the cow hiding, or the small animals running around, she finds her serenity in the woods. Jewett’s story portrays the simplistic opposition between the wild nature and the constructed civilization as Sylvie represents both nature, while the hunter/ornithologist represents civilization. One can argue that Jewett intentionally developed the story in a way where a comparison can be drawn between Sylvie/Nature and the man, to the Native Americans and the White settlers coming over from England; to show that the Native Americans wanted to simply preserve and take care of nature and the wild while the white man just wanted to kill, conquer, and study. Sylvia understands that natural beauty is only natural and beautiful while it is wild and untamed; to find beauty and to capture it by capturing it or harvesting it turns that once beautiful object for all to see, into a dead object that again all may see, but not in its natural beauty. People no longer get to experience the object in its natural habitat, but rather simply see it’s outer beauty, failing to see the inner beauty and grace that say the flower, or the white heron resonates along the beautiful New England coast.
The ornithologist represents the white people as they both did not wish to be one with nature, to live with nature in harmony, but rather to prove their dominance over it and to kill and conquer it to study the characteristics of nature to help themselves when all they needed to do was to stop and see what nature had to offer without the need to kill the animals or plants. The man did not simply want to see the bird, he wanted to kill the bird because he was, “making a collections of birds [for himself] (673).” He gets enjoyment out of killing the birds because then he gets to stuff and preserve them all for his private collection. The similarities are drawn between the ornithologist and the white settlers because the settlers did not care about what was someone else’s property or if something else died on their conquest to control land, water, and food; they took what they wanted and didn’t care about the repercussions from the Native Americans. The ornithologist did the same and killed many birds that were considered without truly understanding that many of the birds played an important part in the environment, as well as being very beautiful and certainly a great sight to see. He did not care
about “the sight of thrushes and sparrows dropping silent to the ground, their songs hushed and their pretty feathers stained and wet with blood (679),” he wanted all the accreditation and experiences for himself and in turn was very selfish, as were the white settlers. The settlers and Native Americans could have lived together in peace and harmony while helping each other survive and prosper, however, the outcome came to be that the settlers kicked them off of their own land, off of their own homesteads, all while killing any of them that dare defend what was theirs and what they believed was right. If the activities that the ornithologist is partaking in continue for too long, the “stuff[ing] and preserv[ing] [of] dozens and dozens of [birds]”, then there will come a point where all of the birds in the world will be the same kind and will be very bland, because all of the beautiful and coveted breeds of birds will be captured and killed for personal pleasures of being able to view them every day in private collections; the beautiful birds will not be able to reproduce and they will go extinct, just because people wanted to have them for their own pleasure and couldn’t just share the experience of viewing such creatures with everyone around. The ornithologist thinks he is preserving the birds by killing them and stuffing them, however, wouldn’t letting them be to thrive in nature accomplish that? Are the ornithologist’s actions beneficial or destructive to the world as a whole? Is he actually hurting the birds and their natural ebb and flow by taking them out of the environment? Sylvie, with the help of “the murmur of the pine’s green branches [] in her ear”, she decides that “she cannot tell the heron’s secret and give its life away (679)” as it is not hers to take and give away to the man, just as the land of America was not the white settlers to take, it belonged to the Native Americans. The same thing happened with the Native Americans, the settlers continued to take and take from them and push them off of their own land that they had lived off of for hundreds of years before the settlers even got there, and they ended up being secluded in “Indian Reservations” in the West and the Badlands. Many of the Natives in America died due to disease and inability to secure sustainable harvesting land as the settlers continued to push them away. The interesting lifestyle and heritage of the Native Americans has been lost through the years as many were either killed in conflicts or secluded themselves high in the mountains away from others to just try and survive in one place. The oppositions between nature, represented by Sylvie and the Native Americans, and the modernizing civilization portrayed by the ornithologist and the white settlers are parallel.
• In the gym, the gym teacher announced that they were going to start a new unit. The new unit was volleyball.
...f the natural” (Abbey 6) then proceeds to personify everything around him from ravens that “croak harsh clanking sounds of smug satisfaction” (Abbey 16), to a Juniper tree that might be mad, or simply suffering “an internal effort at liberation” (Abbey 27). While Abbey explores the contradiction of man and nature merged, yet separate, McCandless frequently re-shapes his paradigm to incorporate discovery. Non-adherence to predetermined configurations allows both men to have the relationships they seek with wilderness and industrial society. We see on close inspection that what at first appears to be a contradiction is actually a purposeful non-conformity that allows each man to tailor his experience.
I am a human being, and so are you. You know that if two colored men came along and found two white women pinned under a car, they’d help them. How can you be so inhuman?” (97). This passage practically shows the meaning behind His Eye on the Sparrow.
According to the history books, the era of Romanticism and the subsequent Enlightenment have long since past, but their far-reaching effects are still evident in literature written in the 20th century. The importance of human merit and worth rooted in Romantic thought has transcended the bounds of time and manifested itself in the novels of Caldwell and Himes through a preoccupation with what it means to be human. In God’s Little Acre, not only are readers prone to question whether or not the Walden family is subhuman because of their problematic behaviors, but the character of Buck remarks that “God put us in the bodies of animals and ...
Catherine is like a bird stuck in it's cage. If you hold the bird in it's cage it will want to fly out of it even if you were to put food inside. However the Bird that was not kept in its cage then it will walk right inside and eat the food. In the book, Catherine Called Birdy by Karen Cushman, Catherine is the main character and is forced to do and deal with many things. Throughout the novel she is to deal with every situation to the best of her abilities and she makes the right choices, except when she doesn't. Three situations or problems she faces with courage and Determination are, she is forced to marry Shaggy Beard, Deal with the wrath of her Father, and try to avoid her lady lessons.
Often times, a seemingly simple story can convey complex themes. In her short story “A White Heron,” Sarah Orne Jewett is able to dive into the sexuality of her main character Sylvia. Though seemingly innocent on the surface, the reader might interpret the hunt for the elusive white heron as Sylvia’s discovery of herself and her sexuality. Though sexuality may seem like a mature topic for such a young character, it is irresponsible to completely ignore it. Especially in a story with innuendos that rival a romance novel. Jewett uses sexual undertones in the search for a white heron to bring light to Sylvia’s questioning of her sexuality.
Since its first appearance in the 1886 collection A White Heron and Other Stories, the short story A White Heron has become the most favorite and often anthologized of Sarah Orne Jewett. Like most of this regionalist writer's works, A White Heron was inspired by the people and landscapes in rural New England, where, as a little girl, she often accompanied her doctor father on his visiting patients. The story is about a nine-year-old girl who falls in love with a bird hunter but does not tell him the white heron's place because her love of nature is much greater. In this story, the author presents a conflict between femininity and masculinity by juxtaposing Sylvia, who has a peaceful life in country, to a hunter from town, which implies her discontent with the modernization?s threat to the nature. Unlike female and male, which can describe animals, femininity and masculinity are personal and human.
A White Heron and Other Stories. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Jewett Texts. Web. 5 Feb. 2014. .
She urges the workers to cut as quickly as possible in order to leave the land barren before it is turned into a national park. After the Pembertons and the other shareholders go on a hunting trip for deer, Rash describes “a mound of the carcasses in the meadow’s center, and blood streaked the snow red” (Rash, page 119, chapter 6). On the same trip, Serena kills a bear that was attacking Pemberton and tells a worker to add its body to the pile instead of tanning the hide or mounting the head (Rash, page 124, chapter 6). One critic of the novel says, “[n]one of the animals are used for meat nor are they killed for their hides or trophies. It seems as if the animals are murdered, for a reason worse than the trees, just because they are there” (Lee). Serena also imports an eagle and trains it to hunt rattlesnakes that are harming the workers. This causes another upset in the balance of the ecosystem as the rat population in the camp increases without its natural predator present. It would appear that her eagle and her white Arabian are the only parts of nature that Serena respects because they are symbols of power. Serena elevates herself by riding through the camp on the horse and also how a man would ride it rather than the traditional side-saddle style of women. She shows her reverence for her eagle when she says, “[i]t’s so beautiful […] [i]t’s no wonder it takes not just the earth but the sky to contain it” (Rash, page 147, chapter 8). One of the workers also comments on the relationship between Serena and her eagle saying, “I’d no more strut up and tangle with that eagle than I’d tangle with the one what can tame such a critter” (Rash, page 172, chapter
Why does Harriet Bird shoot Roy Hobbs? This is the core question in the book, The Natural, by Bernard Malamud. Harriet Bird, the woman who shoots Roy Hobbs, covers less than one tenth of the book. However, she is definitely a major character since she affects Roy’s entire life. Malamud depicts Harriet as a special and mystical woman. Such portrayal creates tension throughout the novel. The suspense is formed as the author describe the costume and behaviors of Harriet Bird. The suspense draws the attention of the readers while making the novel novel more intriguing and fascinating.
Both “The Clan of One-Breasted Women” and “An Entrance to the Woods,” gives a viewpoint on the human relationship with nature. Terry Tempest Williams critizes man for being ruthless when it comes to nature and other humans. Wendell Berry believes similarly the same thing. He believes that man needs nature just as much as they need civilization. However, regardless of the differences, both writers offer an insightful perspective on the forever changing relationship between man and nature. And this relationship is, and always will be, changing.
Never underestimate nature for it is beautiful but has a dark and dangerous side. In “The Birds” by Daphne Du Maurier we get detailed passages that give us a more visual picture on how nature can be destructive in even the most bizarre ways. Imagery is a massive part of this story, the story gives thorough details and uses a lot of figurative language that help the reader picture the scenes. In the story, “The Birds” Daphne du Maurier uses brilliant imagery to successfully have the reader visualise and have a deeper understanding of the story.
Nature is often a focal point for many author’s works, whether it is expressed through lyrics, short stories, or poetry. Authors are given a cornucopia of pictures and descriptions of nature’s splendor that they can reproduce through words. It is because of this that more often than not a reader is faced with multiple approaches and descriptions to the way nature is portrayed. Some authors tend to look at nature from a deeper and personal observation as in William Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”, while other authors tend to focus on a more religious beauty within nature as show in Gerard Manley Hopkins “Pied Beauty”, suggesting to the reader that while to each their own there is always a beauty to be found in nature and nature’s beauty can be uplifting for the human spirit both on a visual and spiritual level.
Through the ingenious works of poetry the role of nature has imprinted the 18th and 19th century with a mark of significance. The common terminology ‘nature’ has been reflected by our greatest poets in different meanings and understanding; Alexander Pope believed in reason and moderation, whereas Blake and Wordsworth embraced passion and imagination.
What do you feel when you see a sunset? Warm, happy, amazed, awe-inspired? The sun rose yesterday, and will again tomorrow, and will again the day after that, it’s not as if the sunrise is a miraculous event, yet the emotions are visceral. It’s beautiful, and this strikes a deep, primal chord inside. John Berger attempts to unravel this mysterious attraction to beauty in his essay, “The White Bird”. The white bird in question is a small, wooden carving of a white bird, hung in the kitchens of certain cultures that experience long winters, such as the Haute Savoie region in France. According to Berger, the birds are an attempt to hold onto the fleeting beauty of nature, and a reminder of the spring to come. “Nature is energy and struggle. It