A Dynamic Character In Sarah Orne Jewett's A White Heron

The short story “A White Heron” by Sarah Orne Jewett expresses a dynamic character named Sylvia who loves to adventure the woods but is normally afraid of people. However, one day she meets a stranger who she connects with and starts to change how she feels towards people and the shyness of her personality. In the beginning, Jewett explains that Sylvia had came to live with her grandma on the farm to get away from the crowded manufacturing town. Mrs. Tilley tells that Sylvia is afraid of people. “’Afraid of folks’, old Mrs. Tilley said to herself, with a smile, after she has made the unlikely choice of Sylvia from her daughter’s houseful of children, and was returning to the farm” (Jewett 52). Sylvia likes to be alone in the woods where she feels comfortable. “Sylvia whispered that this was a beautiful place to live, and she never should wish to go home” (Jewett 52). Since she is afraid of people,

She decides to keep quiet and refuses to tell the stranger the whereabouts of the bird. “But Sylvia does not speak after all, though the grandmother fretfully rebukes her, and the young man’s kind appealing eyes are looking straight in her own” (Jewett 58). Her previous journey up the pine tree causes her to mature and realize how important nature and the bird’s life is. Sylvia becomes one with the bird feeling as if she can fly as well. “Sylvia felt as if she too could go flying away among the clouds” (Jewett 57). She admires the heron because it is so free and limitless. “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” (Jewett 59). Although she has feelings for the stranger, her instinct is to save the bird, which has ore meaning to her than any money or man could. Sylvia does not want to be bribed from the stranger in exchange for the white heron’s