By Samantha McDonough
Core Text:
Jewett, Sarah Orne. A White Heron and Oter Stories. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN, 1887.
Summary:
Jewett’s A White Heron was first published in 1886 and has become one of the author’s most famous short stories. The story follows a young girl named Sylvia who lives with her grandmother on a small farm surrounded by forest. Sylvia’s life revolves around her love for nature and spends her days helping her grandmother with farm chores and mingling with the forest animals. Her life is peaceful and fulfilling and the young girl feels as though she belongs in nature. However, when a young hunter arrives, looking to capture the rare white heron, Sylvia begins to shift in her comfortability. Sylvia, despite her initial fear and shyness around the hunter, begins to develop love for him and agrees to help him locate the bird. Sylvia is forced to confront her connection to nature and desire for a ‘normal life’. Her overwhelming desire to protect wildlife and explore nature begin to take precedence over her wants of money and romantic love. Sylvia’s journey in A White Heron questions a young girl’s relationship to the natural world, life-altering decisions and feelings of regret.
Setting 
South Berwick, Maine which is where Jewett’s family was from. Jewett has said that many of her short stories are based in the area where she grew up. Sylvia in A White Heron may be based on a younger Sarah Orne Jewett.
The White Heron
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYSM2f94Uhg
This video depicts the White Heron, more commonly known as the Great Egret, which is the bird Jewetts story is focussed around. The birds are a magnificent sight, standing at around three feet tall, and a five foot wingspan. The sighting of this bird is understandably rare for the characters in our story, as they are not typically localized in Maine.
Literary Analysis:
On the surface, this is simply a story about a young girl who is deeply connected to nature and is protecting a white heron from a male hunter. Jewett uses symbolism and other literary devices to address issues of womanhood, environmentalism, and personal growth, The story focuses on womens’ inherent ability to focus on the importance of nature and the parallels between the oppression of women by the patriarchy and the exploitation of nature. Sylvia, who can be looked at as the feminine perspective, has a deep admiration for nature and birds and is entranced by the white heron. Jewett uses Sylvia as a device to describe the feminine outlook on nature. The hunter can be looked at as the masculine or patriarchal perspective and also claims to have admiration for the bird, but is hunting with the intention of killing it. Sylvia, or the feminine perspective, takes on a motherly and preserving role for nature, while the patriarchy seeks to monetize, comotify and benefit from nature. Jewett also addressed Sylvia’s internal struggle between following her passion (nature) and her instinctive desire for love, of which she feels for the first time in her childhood with the hunter.
Resources:
WESS, ROBERT. “Geocentric Ecocriticism.”, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, vol. 10, no. 2, 2003, pp. 1–19. www.jstor.org/stable/44086141.
In this journal, author Robert Wess discusses the concept of geocentric ecocriticism and how we can look at works of literature through this lens. Wess argues that “to humanize the nonhuman is to anthropocentrize it and in that sense to falsify it.” Wess connects this concept to A White Heron in his analysis of the story where discusses the actions of Sylvia, the hunter, and Sylvia’s grandmother. He talks about the hunter’s connection to nature and how it is damaging to nature itself. He also criticizes Sylvia’s connection to nature as well, despite its typical analysis being pure and protecting. Wess looks critically at her relationship to nature, arguing that her love of nature, in of itself, is selfish. This article offers an interesting perspective to the deep roots of human relation to nature.
Pratt, Annis. “Women and Nature in Modern Fiction.”, Contemporary Literature, vol. 13, no. 4, 1972, pp. 476–480, www.jstor.org/stable/1207443
In this journal, Annis Pratt analyses women’s relation to nature in numerous stories, including Jewett’s A White Heron. Pratt goes into detail in her analysis of Slyvia’s decisions and how they relate to her connection to nature and her own desires. Pratt discusses the internal struggle that Sylvia undergoes as a result of her interactions with both the hunter and the white heron. She is at a crossroads in her mind and is torn between her internal desire for romantic love with a man and her deep connection with nature. Pratt discusses the underlying connection women in literature have with nature and how that can be recognized in popular fiction.
Held, George. “Heart to Heart with Nature: Ways of Looking at ‘A White Heron.’” Colby Quarterly , vol. 18, no. 1, Mar. 1982, pp. 55–65.
George Held, in this article, looks deeper at A White Heron and analyzes the text’s literary significance through a new lens. Held analyzes Jewetts literary devices and how they are used to further the underlying themes of the story. He looks at how the symbolism in Sylvia and the hunter characters develop throughout the story and how that lends to themes of gender, feminism, and personal growth.
Discussion Questions:
- How does Sylvia’s perception of nature differ from that of the hunter? How does the hunter’s anthropocentric perception of nature affect his actions toward it?
- Despite this story being written much earlier than the large environmental movement began, how does Jewett communicate themes of environmentalism throughout the story?
- How does Sylvia’s difficulty with her decision to help the Hunter relate to her socialized gender roles?