A White Heron

The Story

Setting/Background
Late 19th century New England
Countryside an undisturbed,
natural environment.
Role of the Natural World in the story.
Sylvia is deeply connected to the
natural world.
-As if she had never been alive at all
until she moves to the countryside (438).

Feminist Criticism
Late 19th century U.S.A
o Women began to talk about universal suffrage and
equal rights.
Jewett chooses a heroine, a little girl, to be the
center-focus of the story (not a boy). She is unlike
other little girls of her time she plays out in the
woods and is one with the animals. She does want to
be domesticated.
Many feminist scholars believe that this story is a
rebuke of the role of women at the time:
Sylvia does not need the young man to find the
White Heron.
The young man is incompetent in leading the journey
(man in the lead role is a failure.)
Sylvia ultimately rejects the money of the young man.

Themes to think About

Man v Natural World

Youth/Innocence v Corruption
Isolation
Gender roles (feminist criticism)
Morality
Choices

Character Archetypes
Sylvia (protagonist the storys Heroine)
Young man (Anti-Hero?)
Symbolizes man (corrupted)

Mrs. Tilley
Moody the cow (Sylvias main companion)
The Tree (the Obstacle)
The White Heron (antithesis of the young
man.)
o Represents natural world, which is free of
corruption.

The Heroines Journey

Sylvias quest for the White Heron:
-She has unusual gifts (439).
-As if she is also a creature of the woods
and is innocent like them.
If she finds the White Heron for the young
man, she will receive $10.00 compensation
-Todays equivalent of $267.00
Originally, the money excites Sylvia,
because she has seen the White Heron
before.

The Heroines Journey

The journey (in Part I of the story):
o Sylvia begins to like the young man and his
charm (443) = temptation.
o However, Sylvia repeatedly doesnt understand
why he has to carry a weapon; [she] would have
liked him vastly better without his gun (442).
Her innocence / confusion with killing for
sport.
Notably, she is not leading the journey. He is:
o She only followed, and there was no such
thing as speaking first (442).
o They are unsuccessful, mainly because he
was leading the hunt.

The Heroines Journey (Part

II)
Sylvia is able to sneak out of the house and look
for the White Heron alone (this is important).
She finds a huge tree asleep in the moonlight,
that she climbs (the obstacle):
Sharp dry twigs caught and held and
scratched her like angry talons (443).
The tree seemed to lengthen itself out as she
went up (443).
The tree is the most difficult part of her journey;
it is alive and acts to prevent her from finding the
top.
-Yet, the tree is said to admire her spirit and
determination (443).
Eventually, she reaches the top.

The Heroines Journey (Part

II)
Climax
Sylvias climbing of the mystical tree and
succeeding
o She sees the beautiful vastness of the natural
world of the sea, the birds, and the forest.
It is incorruptible.
o The birds sang louder and louder. At last the
sun came up bewilderingly bright. Sylvia
could see the white sails of ships out sea, and
the clouds that were purple and rose-colored
and yellow at first began to fade away (444).
o She spots the White Heron, and knows his
secret now(444).
o =

The Heroines Journey

The Return
o When Sylvia finally faces her internal conflict (money
for her low-income grandmother or the White Herons
life), she chooses to save the White Herons life
Her conscious, heroic choice.
The murmur of the pine's green branches is in her
ears, she remembers how the white heron came
flying through the golden air and how they watched
the sea and the morning together, and Sylvia cannot
speak; she cannot tell the heron's secret and give its
life away (444).

What is the White Herons secret?

Complicated Ending?
Were the birds better friends than their

hunter might have been who can tell

(445)?
o Goes back to her previous attachment to
the young man, which makes little sense
given that she is a nine year old girl.
Is Sylvia (in the story) Jewett (the author)?
-Similarly, Jewett grew up in Maine and did
not marry.

Concluding analysis
Sylvia is a heroine because she
makes a choice that we, the
readers, most likely approve of.
o Despite temptations, she saves the White
Heron from destruction.
Questions?
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