Man versus Nature

Man versus Nature

The Earth is home to everyone; plants, animals, and humans. We all share the space that the universe has created, and sometimes people forget that humans and animals share the same space, and they abuse the creatures who are their, “earth-born companions”(Burns). Animals must have a terrible opinion of those who come to hunt and destroy for sport. This is the basis for Sarah Orne Jewett’s short story in which a young girl understands the bond that exists between her and nature.

Sarah Orne Jewett lived a short life from 1849-1909 and is most remembered for the short story a “A White Heron.” She created heroes of every shape and size who help themselves and others, and as Shackford said, “All of her stories are loosely woven narratives.” One of her best narratives “A White Heron” tells the story of a nine year old girl Sylvia who saves a heron from certain death. Because Sylvia understood nature and the animals she lived with, she became a hero that no human would never know. In the short story “A White Heron,” Sarah Orne Jewett portrays the theme man and nature must share the earth, represented through symbolism and conflict.

Jewett portrays the theme man versus nature through the use of symbolism. For example, “One thing is certain: her own character had made as good a summer’s growth as anything on her farm”(Jewett). Sylvia learns to trust her own feelings and does not give in to her grandmother and the hunter. Sylvia has saved a white heron and its family from the hunter because she made a choice to not to listen “to an external voice and heeds an internal one”(Billy). Sylvia learns to respect the world she lives in and the animals she shares it with. Her grandmother says, “There ain't a foot o...

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...t leading him to the heron. Sylvia eventually resolves her conflict as she climbs the big pine tree with the heron’s nest it; “For her, the pine tree becomes a tree of knowledge;”(Griffith). Sylvia defies both her grandmother’s common sense and the hunter’s ignorance about nature, but she makes she makes her decision based on her own appreciation of nature.

Sarah Orne Jewett uses Sylvia in the white heron to illustrate her theme that man and nature must share the earth, and because man has the power to destroy most other animals, the responbility for protecting the these animals lies within each person through symbolism and conflict, Jewett creates the story of a young girl who follows her conscience. Just as certainly as the mouse in Robert Burns poem what have a horrible opinion of mankind come the heron would have a story of a girl who saved it from destruction.