A White Heron: Rejecting City Values

Within 'A White Heron,' Jewett provides her readers with a set of conflicting values that can all be included in the country versus the city theme. Jewett points out her preference by having Sylvia choose nature over civilization, while recognizing the cost of making that choice as well. Jewett points out her choice in having Sylvia select nature over society, while acknowledging the cost of having that option as well. The story begins with Sylvia, who lives in Maine's woods with her grandma. She encounters a tall young man who is looking for a rare white heron while taking the cow back. He wants to kill it for his collection and stuff it. He offers a lot of cash to Sylvia only if she helps him find the creature. Sylvia is driven not only to help with the resources she could afford, but mostly because she considers the young man attractive. Sylvia climbs the large pine tree to seek the white heron's secret nest, but she also perceives it as a great adventure to climb.

There may be a good meaning in Sylvia's act of scaling the tree, because she has what will be characterized as a transcendental revel in when she reaches the top. She locates the mysterious white heron's mystery nest, but she additionally sees the solar rising over the gold-speckled sea, the white sails of ships and hawks flying in addition to timber, fields, churches and villages for miles away. She nearly seems like 'she will fly away in the clouds too. 'Jewett's contrast of Sylvia with the 'wretched dry geranium belonging to a neighboring town' is instructive, for Sylvia thrives on transferring from metropolis to united states, as could the geranium. As she sees the hunter for the primary time, she drops her head 'as though it's damaged the stem. 'Jewett means that Sylvia is a rose, part of nature. No longer only is she embraced with the aid of wild animals, however she additionally feels 'as if she had been a part of the grey shadows and the transferring leaves. ' Sylvia's hyperlinks to nature also are expressed in Jewett's rationalization of her naked toes and palms, that are like 'hen's claws,’ a simile that connects her with birds and allows provide an explanation for her selection.

The hunter who seeks the white heron comes from the town and is therefore corrupted by means of humanity. In fact, like the excellent red-confronted boy he's a hazard to Sylvia: he may not hurt her bodily, however he might also control her by way of influencing her to 'sell out' humanity through taking cash for information. Jewett does no longer blame the hunter for hunting in itself; Mrs. Tilley recognizes that hunting creates game birds (partridges) to be hunted in order to live on. Alternatively, hunting all varieties of birds (along with thrushes and sparrows) simply to stuff them for one's very own 'choice' is Mrs. Tilley's 'foreign' belief and Sylvia's incomprehensible “She couldn't comprehend why he killed the very birds he seemed to like a lot. ” In impact, her first perception of him because the “enemy” is accurate.

The corruption of the 'persuasive' young man is marked by his situation when he meets him. Like many other moral raiders in the dark woods, the hunter is 'lost. ' When he is guided to the hermitage and receives Mrs. Tilley's hospitality, he repays it by trying to exploit Sylvia's obvious love for him and Mrs. Tilley's equal. In lots of ways,’A White Heron' is a tale with mythological overtones. A young female trying to live in reclusive ethical superiority is exposed to the temptation of the out of doors global. The agent of deception makes use of her developing interest in the opposite sex to hypnotize her to lie to the herbal global in which she resides. Whilst her 'woman's soul,’ which were 'cozy,’ changed into 'vaguely amazed' with the aid of the young hunter, she also gained new views into herself and the arena of nature. Her morning journey, if you want to lead her via a risky swamp, and her subsequent climb up a pine tree, will both check her and teach her. As she tries to negotiate the 'passage' from the okayto the wood, she undergoes a 'great undertaking,’ one this is each daunting and rewarding. From the top of the tree, she will see the 'huge and awesome global' beyond the protection of the field. Unluckily for the hunter, he also sees a white heron and a chum of his. The battle between the 2 worlds and the parallel among the herons and their situation is simply obvious to the 'sadder but wiser' Sylvia: handiest at the rate of destroying any other 'domestic' state of affairs can her happiness in assisting the object of her infatuation be done, which can be extra good sized. Jewett writes in a form of epilogue,’might the birds have been higher pals than their hunters?

At the end of 'A White Heron,' the protagonist of the unconventional, Sylvia, has to select whether to assist the hunter find and kill a lovely, uncommon white heron, or whether to preserve the heron covered by way of not disclosing his nest's area. In this instance, the choice of Sylvia to guard nature (by using retaining the location of the heron mystery) or to advantage from its consumption (through disclosing the heron's nest and accepting the bribe of the hunter) is also a mirrored image of her perspectives at the industry. Finally, Sylvia chooses to keep this mystery of the heron's nest, which is Jewett's way of suggesting that the proper preference is to prioritize nature over industrialization.

To Jewett, the contention between nature and enterprise is related to a town-to-usa dispute, and the reminiscences of Sylvia shifting from the industrial town where she grew as much as the geographical region residence of her aunt, Mrs. Tilley, underline the importance of nature. Jewett factors out that Sylvia 'attempted to develop in a crowded production city for 8 years,’ but there she 'become never alive. 'After first seeing the beauty of the farm of her grandma, Sylvia referred to that she 'would never want to head domestic. ' far from her industrialized homeland's deadening effects, Sylvia appears to return alive. In preference to being frightened of the sector, she starts off evolved to discover it with eagerness, Jewett remarks that 'since the global changed into made, there has never been the sort of toddler to wander out of doors!”She learns in detail approximately the landscape, tames wild creatures, and is glad to appearance after the cussed cow of her grandmother. For Sylvia, the nation-state is a more fit environment, as nature makes her confident and glad, at the same time as the town made her dull and frightening.

Even as the transformation inside Sylvia demonstrates that she could unquestioningly desire nature over cutting-edge industrialism, she continues to be drawn via the hunter (whom Jewett sincerely identifies with metropolis and enterprise). As he has advanced statistics and state-of - the-artwork system, the hunter embodies intrusive urban have an impact on. He tells Sylvia several matters that she did not apprehend approximately birds, and he affords her with a jackknife and contains a gun, both of which might be unusual inside the united states existence of Sylvia. He is also in particular identified towards industry as his cause— to seize a hen and produce it domestic — mirrors what nature is consumed through industry to make domestic comfort. Even though Sylvia is sad with the goal of the hunter to seize the heron (and alongside the way shooting different birds), she nevertheless considers him 'charming and exquisite' or even senses the stirrings of romantic love for him. The attraction of Sylvia to the hunter (even though she 'might have liked him much better without his gun') suggests that urban industrial impact is seductive to all, no matter how a good deal they love the herbal international.

Due to the fact Sylvia connects with (and even loves) elements of both the hunter and the natural global makes it even extra difficult to choose whether or not to help him kill the heron. When Sylvia is with the hunter, she appears to be coming to his factor of view, feeling fond of him and wanting to help him find the heron in his search. Her identity with the hunter leads her to climb a tall pine tree to try to find for him the heron's nest, a step to kill the heron. However, looking at the nation-state from an aerial angle on the pinnacle of the pine tree, Sylvia sees the heron's view of her surroundings. At this point, she changes her thoughts, starts to agree with the heron's point of view and thus chooses no longer to aid the hunter in his seek. In the end, the hassle of this feature gives Sylvia's efforts to shield the moral authority of the heron: she knows both aspects of a problem, but nevertheless considers that it's far better to protect nature. However, the actuality that she might also have helped the hunter if she had now not openly visible the arena from the point of view of the heron has a traumatic implication: the extra nature is destroyed, the much less humans could be able to guard it because it could be more tough to locate transcendent stories of nature inclusive of the one that swayed Sylvia.