A White Heron Literary Analysis

I ask yourself to think back to a time where you were felt most free, that nothing seems impossible or too far out of reach. Where your curiosity has no limits. Where you remember sweet and happy memories of joy and love. The innocence of childhood. What we would give now as adults to go back to those days, while back then, all we wished for was to just grow up! With the real naïveness of a child, we were introduced to the character Sylvia- an incredibly quiet, soft spoken girl, from the story A White Heron, written by Sarah Jewett. In fact, Jewett did described Sylvia as having a, “…childish patience…” (pg. 1597), but, as I read further into the story, it became clear that this story was not just about the innocence of childhood, but of

Sylvia finds this beautiful bird, and is brought with the conflicting thought as to whether to give away its whereabouts to the hunter as for, “she cannot tell the heron’s secret and give its life away.” (pg. 1603) Typically, the color white is known to represent a sense of purity and innocence. This bringing me back to how Sylvia is a child- supposedly, not knowing much about the world, and her sense of knowledge will grow, but as of this moment, she and the white heron are bonded. I say bonded, because the white heron and herself are symbolized to be pure. She had decided in that moment that it was not her place to trade the heron’s life for the money which the hunter had offered-which might I add could help her and her grandmother significantly, but she would not give a life away for money. This brings the question, for which I still do not have an exact answer to; does she see herself as the Heron? Perhaps hoping, wishing, praying that someday, someone would not sell her life or secrets to earn something else? This just gives another understanding as to how childlike she is, as in a world like hers, like ours- we typically always have the thought as to how something will benefit our own selves. Or perhaps, the reason she is keeping the heron’s secret was out of protection and kindness, since no one had done that for her, therefor giving the heron a chance to blossom to its full potential. Either or, Sylvia has nothing to gain from giving away the heron’s secret other than her moral