SO Jewett Nature

SO Jewett Nature

The Conception of Nature and its Relationship to Gender in S.O. Jewett^Òs story "A White Heron."

"Nature, in the common sense, refers to the essences unchanged by man^Å"

From the very first steps of the new settlers on the American continent, its uncivilized nature, full of smell of the forests, of freshness of the air, and of almost prelapsarian variety of flora and fauna, came to be associated with unlimited wilderness. However, under the vigorous attack of developing civilization the untouched virginity of the New World soon began to recede, irretrievably losing its wild independent beauty. For a great number of American writers this confrontation of nature with civilization became a theme for the never-ending discussion. The short story of an American writer regionalist Sarah Orne Jewett, "A White Heron", is one of the works written on this touching American theme. In this story the author presents the conflict by juxtaposing a little country-girl Sylvia, who lives in harmony with nature, to the bird-hunter from a town. She does so through identification of a girl with nature and boys ^ with civilization. While the girl stands for the innocent femininity of natural world, who loves and cares about the creatures around, the boys are associated with aggression, danger and warlike elements of civilization. Thus she implies the idea that nature is just like a harmless little girl just exists in peace with every tiny thing around, while civilization, like a young man with a gun, by its utilitarian love for nature senselessly annihilates the artless creation.

From the opening lines of the story Sarah Orne Jewett ushers her readers into the magic world of untouched beauty of the "New England wilderness" (WH, p.200): "the woods were already filled with shadows one June evening^" (WH, p.197). The reader is immediately charmed and has no choice but to proceed, to walk further, among the trees, until he meets a little girl, walking by the forest path together with her "plodding" (WH, p.