Sarah Orne Jewett's The White Heron

In Sarah Orne Jewett’s short story, The White Heron, the protagonist is a young girl named Sylvia. Sylvia is nine years old and still very much a child, but during the course of the story she begins to get her first awareness of her womanhood and femininity. She experiences her first sexual attraction to a male. While this awareness may only be present in her subconscious, she is conflicted and vacillates between her love of nature, and increasing interest in the young visitor. This confusion is typical of the timeless dilemma of head versus heart. Nevertheless, Sylvia is forced to make a final decision by the end of Jewett’s tale. The choice: whether or not to not reveal the secret location of the white herons’ nest to the bird collector. This choice, is one that Jewett impresses upon readers in a gentle suspense, will change the course of Sylvie’s future.
The reader learns about Sylvia’s fondness for her current surroundings in the second paragraph where for Sylvia, “…it seemed as if she never had been alive at all before she came to live at the farm.” and “that this was a beautiful place to live in, and she never should wish to go home.” This affinity for nature is further

substantiated by Sylvia’s grandmother when she brags in depth to the newcomer about the way, “the wild creatures counts her one o’ themselves” in the tenth paragraph.
The first inkling the reader perceives of Sylvia’s romantic interest in the sportsman is found when she joins him the next morning for a walk in the forest. In the fifteenth paragraph, Jewett writes, “Sylvia kept him company, having lost fear of the friendly lad…” He even gave her a jack-knife “which she thought a great treasure.” We can tell the girl is becoming more comfortable with the young man and ascertain that “as the day waned, Sylvia still watched the young man with loving admiration. She had never seen anybody so charming and delightful.” It is obvious that Sylvia has developed a huge crush on the young man. This is confirmed with the words: “…the woman’s heart asleep in the child, was vaguely thrilled by a dream of love.”
Initially Sylvia is frightened of the stranger and attempts to hide in the bushes, “but she was just too late. The enemy had discovered her.” Sylvia is worried she’ll get in trouble with her grandmother for bringing him to their sanctuary, their home. She feels an instinctual protectiveness of their farm, much like that of the white heron. The young girl acts as if she is a wild animal herself. But even so, “Sylvia would have liked him vastly better without his gun;” she could not understand why he killed the very birds he seemed to like so much.” The only time Sylvia feels uncomfortable with the young man, is when he’s killing “some unsuspecting singing creature…” (paragraph 17)
A possible explanation for Sylvia’s ambivalence can be found in an article by Josephine Donovan called, Silence or Capitulation: Prepatriarchal “Mothers’ Gardens” in Jewett and Freeman. In this article she proposes that Sylvia and the white heron are symbolic of the feminine in their connection to Mother Nature. Whereas, the young ornithologist “represents patriarchal civilization: the world of literacy, science, knowledge, industrialism and imperialistic militarism.” Essentially, the domestication of the wild woman. Donovan states “Women in this perspective are faced with a dilemma: either they may remain in the prepatriarchal world of the Mother (the world of nature), … or they enter the patriarchal world of culture and are forced to submit to its misogynist exigencies.”
This correlation makes perfect sense when we recall the temptation of the ten dollar reward, just for showing the hunter the heron’s nest. This money could have greatly helped Sylvia and her grandmother’s circumstances. People often betray their conscionce in the pursuit of financial security. Another connection to Donovan’s premise can be seen in the way the young girl was awed by the sportsman’s scholarship. The allure in the way “he told her many things about birds and what they knew and where they lived and what they did with themselves.” His knowledge is formal, from books and school. Sylvia’s understanding is a natural education; that comes solely from observation, intuition and experience.
It is towards the end of the story, that Sylvia returns to nature, to discover that exact location of the white heron and its lair.

She undergoes a transformational journey when she bravely climbs, the primordial pine that stands like a guardian of the forest. She believes that scaling this ancient landmark wil be rewarded in a vision of the world, the ocean, and ultimately a revelation - the nest. “It was almost too real and too great for the childish heart to bear.” (nineteenth paragraph) Sylvia returns from this quest exhausted, bedraggled, and baptized in pine sap. When grilled by her grandmother and the young man, she is mute. She is unable to accept opportunity, recalling the sound of the wind in the pine and her shared sunrise with the white heron. She is forever

changed.
This decision, this detour of life path, is not without cost. Sylvia feels “a sharp pang” inside, as the hunter leaves. She knows she “could have served and followed him and loved him as a dog loves.” Consolation is found for the reader however, in the knowledge that this love would most likely not be one of redamancy. The desperate manipulation of the young man is exposed because, “he was sure from the way the shy little girl looked once or twice yesterday that she had at least seen the white heron, and now she must be made to tell.” (paragraph 26) He sees Sylvia simply as a means of getting what he wants, another bird to kill and stuff… like all the rest.
Jewett ponders in the final paragraph, “Were the birds better friends than the hunter might have been, who can tell? Whatever treasures were lost to her, woodlands summer-time, remember! Bring your gifts and graces and tell your secrets to this lonely child!” We can interpret this to mean, not only has Sylvia knowingly chosen to give up the reward of ten dollars, but also the potential relationship with the “handsome young man”; with the kind, appealing eyes”, to remain a “lonely child” in the woods with her sylvan family. In Jewett’s estimation a fair trade indeed.

Works Cited:

Donovan, Josephine. "Silence or Capitulation: Prepatriarchal 'Mothers' Gardens' in Jewett and Freeman." Studies in Short Fiction Winter 23.1 (1986): 43-49. Ebsohost. Web. 15 Apr. 2016.