More handpicked essays just for you.
Realism and romanticism
Gender inequality in literature examples
Essay on a white heron by sarah aorne jewett wrote
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The Rural Privilege in A White Heron by Sarah Orne Jewett Sarah Orne Jewett's "A White Heron" is a brilliant story of an inquisitive young girl named Sylvia. Jewett's narrative describes Sylvia's experiences within the mystical and inviting woods of New England. I think a central theme in "A White Heron" is the dramatization of the clash between two competing sets of values in late nineteenth-century America: industrial and rural. Sylvia is the main character of the story. We can follow her through the story to help us see many industrial and rural differences. Inevitably, I believe that we are encouraged to favor Sylvia's rural environment and values over the industrial ones. Our first introduction to these competing sets of values begins when we meet Sylvia. She is a young girl from a crowded manufacturing town who has recently come to stay with her grandmother on a farm. We see Sylvia's move from the industrial world to a rural one as a beneficial change for the girl, especially from the passage, "Everybody said that it was a good change for a little maid who had tried to grow for eight years in a crowded manufacturing town, but, as for Sylvia herself, it seemed as if she never had been alive at the all before she came to live at the farm"(133). The new values that are central to Sylvia's feelings of life are her opportunities to plays games with the cow. Most visibly, Sylvia becomes so alive in the rural world that she begins to think compassionately about her neighbor's geraniums (133). We begin to see that Sylvia values are strikingly different from the industrial and materialistic notions of controlling nature. Additionally, Sylvia is alive in nature because she learns to respect the natural forces of this l... ... middle of paper ... ...ive. By presenting the competing sets of industrial and rural values, Jewett's "A White Heron" gives us a rich and textured story that privileges nature over industry. I think the significance of this story is that it gives us an urgent and emphatic view about nature and the dangers that industrial values and society can place upon it and the people who live in it. Still, we are led to feel much like Sylvia. I think we are encouraged to protect nature, cherish our new values and freedoms, and resist the temptations of other influences that can tempt us to destroy and question the importance of the sublime gifts that living in a rural world can bestow upon us. Bibliography: Work Cited Jewett, Sarah Orne. "A White Heron." The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998. 131-139.
Furthermore, they all have an outside threat. The ornithologist might shoot the heron and make it a specimen while the man is suffered from the severe cold weather. In the stories both characters have to deal with the danger from outside world. Sylvia has to climb upon the tree to see where the heron is, the man has to avoid the snow falls from the tree.
As Sylvia becomes acquainted with the hunter, she begins to learn about his pursuit of the white heron.
Emily Dickinson, a transcendentalist author, demonstrates how settings away from society and technology are representations for virtue and individuality. In her poem Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church she writes about how she stays home on Sundays saying, “I keep it, staying at Home/–With a Bobolink for a Chorister/–And an Orchard, for a Dome” (Some Keep the Sabbath going to Church). Dickinson uses objects of nature such as birds and flowers to convey that she loves nature so much she stays away from society. She basks in her natural haven far from a massive stone cathedral and an orthodox way of life. She is at peace in nature but more importantly she follows her own beliefs and ideas, exhibiting her independence. In Ken Kesey’s writing, one such example of a character who prospers greatly in nature is Billy Bibbit, the stuttering patient from Nurse Ratched’s ward. Throughout the first half of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Bibbit fails to show any genuine feelings other than fear due to the immense control the nurse has over his life. However, he finds courage on the expansive open ocean. When on the boat trip there is “a fuss as to who'd be the three that braved that [storm] without [life]jackets... Everybody was kind of surprised [when] Billy...volunteered...and helped the girl right into [his]” (252). Bibbit acts like a hero on the stormy seas, a far different
...siting F.A.O. Schwarz awakens in Sylvia an internal struggle she has never felt, and through criticizing Miss Moore, Sylvia distances herself from realizing her poverty. In her responses to the toys, their prices, and the unseen people who buy them, it is evident that Sylvia is confronting the truth of Miss Moore's lesson. As Sylvia begins to understand social inequality, the realization of her own disadvantage makes her angry. For Sylvia, achieving class consciousness is a painful enlightenment. For her to accept that she is underprivileged is shameful for her, and Sylvia would rather deny it than admit a wound to her pride: "ain't nobody gonna beat me at nuthin" (312).
Throughout the late 19th century following the Industrial Revolution, society became focused on urban life and began to neglect the importance of rural society and nature. In “A White Heron” Sarah Orne Jewett, through Sylvia’s decision to protect the heron, contemplates the importance of nature and rural society. In particular, Jewett employs the cow grazing scene to show the importance of and solitude that Sylvia finds in rural life. When the hunter appears and Sylvia accompanies him on his journey to find the bird, his actions and speech reveal the destructiveness of urban society on nature. The scene when Sylvia climbs the tree to find the heron, initially in order to please the hunter and satisfy her new love for him, shows her realization
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.
A devoted mother, Anne Bradstreet is concerned with her children as she watches them grow up. “Or lest by Lime-twigs they be foil'd, or by some greedy hawks be spoil'd” Anne Bradstreet uses to describe her fear for her children. Not wanting to see her children suffer, Anne Bradstreet turns to God to help her children. Bradstreet imagines her bird’s being stuck on a branch and a hawk eating them, a grim image of all of her sacrifice being lost in a single moment. “No cost nor labour did I spare” describes how much Anne loves her children.
Griffith, Kelley, Jr. “Sylvia as Hero in Sarah Orne Jewett’s ‘A White Heron.’” Colby Library Quarterly 21.1 (Mar. 1985): 22-27. Rpt. in Literature Resource Center. Detroit: Gale, 2014.Literature Resource Center. Web. 21 Jan. 2014.
Mrs. McIntyre is a divorced and widowed woman who has learned to depend only on her own strength during the day to day operating of her farm. She has created a comfortable world to exist in, and she fears change in that world. Mrs. McIntyre's lack of spiritual dimension stems from this constancy of her surroundings. She has never been challenged by her circumstances and was thus never forced to examine her spiritual beliefs and their depth. We can see her fear of change when she speaks of the peacocks. She if afraid to let them all d...
Sylvia Plaths poem, Sow, depicts a beast of mythic proportions through various images, comparisons, and specific word choices. By presenting the sow from both the point of view of its owner, neighbor, and of the speaker, Plath paints a vivid picture of farmyard decadence that the reader can relate to.
“The Raven.” The American Tradition in Literature, 12th ed. New York: McGraw Hill 2009. Print
... is also clear that the white heron represents the true beauty of the region, while it is elusive and not able to be seen by even an experienced ornithologist, it is seen by Sylvia. The spotting of the white heron by Sylvia is Jewett’s way of expressing that true beauty of a region is only discoverable by those who are so familiar with the region that they can appreciate every aspect of nature’s beauty and once every foot of ground is known, only then can one appreciate the true beauty of the region and in this case that beauty is represented by the white heron. Jewett’s A White Heron is an excellent example of local color literature because it represents everything local color literature should. It contains characters and dialect specific to the region of Maine (Mrs. Tilley) as well as excellent descriptions of the topography of Maine and the beauty of the region.
Zanger, Jules. "Young Goodman Brown" and "A White Heron":Correspondences And illuminations. Papers on Language & Literature. Summer90, Vol. 26 Issue 3, p346, 12p.
Belasco, Susan, and Linck Johnson, eds. The Bedford Anthology of American Literature. Vol. 1, 2nd Ed., Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014. 1190-1203. Print.
Baym, Nina et al. Ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter 8th ed. New York: