Individualism In Sarah Orne Jewett's 'A White Heron'

Another short story that depicts individualism as a main theme is Sarah Orne Jewett’s, “A White Heron” (1886). Conceptualizes the main protagonist, Sylvia, perspective of nature vs humanity as a mystical sanctuary. She changes throughout the story because of her experience coming face to face with the heron bird, and meeting the hunter. Her relationship with nature is one that is very passionate, and unique. She believes nature holds standards for boundless treasures. Sharing a special bond with the delicacies of Mother Nature animals, Sylvia’s connection with the beautiful bird, his “gray feathers…smooth as moths….” (Jewett 439) The white heron stands for purity, grace, beauty, and calmness. Secrets such as the heron rises “through the golden

air” and lands on a branch near her. Thus, the girl and the bird behold “the sea and the morning together” (439). Her ascension of climbing up the pine tree symbolizes her individualism, because she wants to keep her secret experience seeing the white heron. “…Sylvia cannot speak; she cannot tell the heron’s secret and give its life away” (440). This secret symbolizes her transformation in nature from a girl into a woman marking her maturity. Making it appear that meeting, the hunter awakened her sexuality, while the white heron presented according to Selina Jamil of “Country and City in Sarah Orne Jewett’s A White Heron”, “a secret because it symbolizes the mysterious, recondite, and hence inviolable and sacred core of the natural world: “a white spot of him like a single floating feather…grows larger, and rises” (67). Her adorning passion for the white heron means climbing up the pine-tree without stopping until her goal is met.
Once she reaches the top, a mystic experience presents to Sylvia.

She realizes she will be able to see things nobody could otherwise see. Describing sights of, “white sail ships out at sea and the clouds that were purple and rose-colored and yellow at first began to fade away” (439). She can almost picture the world around her as a bird would. The pine-tree therefore becomes a tree of insight. Sylvia endured a lot to reach this point; it was a tiring and painful job, “the sharp dry twigs caught and held her and scratched her like angry talons” (439). Sylvia’s loyalty to nature helps her embrace the heron whose an expression of nature. The seclusion and isolation of the woods over telling the hunter where the heron’s locations are. Shows her character’s true colors, one who believes that by revealing her secrets to the hunter, she will be giving herself up to him, even though she’s romantically connected to him. This revelation would act as an act of sexual submission and final offering of not only her feminity, but her individualism too. The hunter is eager to hunt the bird, by only killing them for sport, depicts the danger to Sylvia, as a symbolic bird herself, and the subsequent sealing of her own demise by surrendering to him what she saw. Thus, deciding to be a woman of nature rather than a woman of society. Nature is a powerful and seductive protagonist; more powerful compared to the young man she meets, and falls for. It claimed Sylvia’s wellbeing long before the

hunter appears and gave her meaning of having someone to be with. Moreover, this symbolic relationship Sylvia shared with the white heron signifies natures connection entwined with individualism.
In much the same way, “A White Heron” addresses individualism of oneself. Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” portrays individualism as an important aspect of societal anti-conformism throughout the poems entirety. “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, / starving hysterical naked,” (Ginsberg 1394). The first line of “Howl” describe Ginsberg’s depiction of the social repression of 1950’s, as a Beat poet, he wrote about homosexuality, drug experiences, spiritualism and life in mental institutions amongst other topics. Bryan Wuthrich of “American System”, demonstrates “Howl” … “cogently illustrate the particular, and controversial, aesthetic tendency within Howl to celebrate the misfit, the outlaw, and the criminal over the conformist, the law-abiding, and the accepted” (440). Ginsberg led a visionary movement. One that demanded a generation to stand up and reach out for their own individuality. Centering on America’s focus on industrialization and capitalism. How American’s were willing to sacrifice their individuality to serve the capitalist machine frustrated Ginsberg. He asks, “What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?” (1399). The answer is the malicious entity Moloch, a symbolic demon that describes capitalist America subduing its citizens and limits their self-expression.
Moloch is to blame for destroying visions of people caused by the effects of social repression who serve the capitalist system.

Individuals in “Howl” are stripped away from claiming ample opportunities of being artistic, free, and have particular aesthetic sensibilities. “Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch...Moloch the incomprehensible prison...Moloch whose mind is pure machinery….” (1400) Ginsberg’s poem criticizes the lack of individual expression throughout society. Saying Beatniks who ate, wept, coughed, plunged, cut, balled, hiccupped, howled, broke, burned, cowered, and sank, yacketyyakking, screaming, vomiting, and whispering. Described endless depictions of how Moloch’s power over the lives of the oppressed gave his “filth, solitude, and, loneliness” (1400). Kept consciously destroying the minds of men and women alike. Intellectuals had done nothing wrong, yet vices and society tore them apart and killed them. Moloch from this perspective can be seen as an antithesis to of his generation. A concrete void, one who opposes individual freedom and love. However, Ginsberg’s poem initiated a call for self-expression and the use of rebellious language was a means towards a cultural and political oppression. Stand up against politics, society, and culture that ultimately brought down the youth culture of

individualism.
The American, by and large, is an individualist. He or she enjoys going their own way, to be in charge of their lives. Individualism can be defined to as the notion in the fundamental importance of the character and in the righteousness of self-reliance and intimate independence. When an individual chose between initiative and custom, between man-to-man, woman-to-woman relationships and compliance to position, he or she chooses the less confined path. This ideology can best be described by Ralph Waldo Emerson, “good men must not obey the laws too well.” Individualism serves as they key idea of setting oneself from others or a society. Often rights of individuals take center stage and their independence is highly valued. Modernist authors devoted careful time in using individualism throughout their stories while revealing social realization of life. In 2018 the literary concept of individualism has changed since stories such as “Barn Burning”, “Howl”, “To Build a Fire” were written and published. The protagonists in their respected narratives represents unique qualities of humanity today. Each person must define individually what humanity truly means to them and what particular values or purpose will dictate in their lives.
Cultural individualism of “I” and “me” has existed for decades because as people gain more education and wealth, both of which advocate self-direction and eventually facilitate individualism. Individuality can become both a positive and negative outcome. Negative, because he or she can attend towards selfishness, and divisiveness. Positive, because it can lead he or she to individual self-exploration, realization of potential achievement, and envisioning a happy life in some circumstances. By casting our own sails out in sea called life, we can achieve our own successes in society by adhering to personal feelings, philosophies, and religious beliefs. Humans have always been individualistic, it’s part of our biological nature.