Analysis Of Sylvia In A White Heron

How far does someone need to go before they realize they will no longer be the same person? In “A White Heron”, Sarah Orne Jewett explores this idea with her main character, Sylvia, who must decide whether she wants to win the love of a man or keep the trust of the wilderness she explores throughout her daily activities. Sylvia is but a child, naïve and innocent to the true intentions of the hunter who comes to stay with her and her grandmother, but there is still the heart of a woman inside of her that yearns for the approval of this man. However, Jewett teaches the audience that although Sylvia never holds the gun, she will be just as responsible for the murder of the heron as the hunter will be. Sylvia must decide about what she truly finds most important, and what she believes is right. It is impossible for Sylvia to know the hunter’s intentions, not only because she is so young but also because she has yet to know her own intentions. As Jewett explains, “…she could not understand why he killed the very birds he seemed to like so much” (page 42). Sylvia is unaware of what most of this man’s intentions are, but she

Jewett explained earlier in the text that Sylvia “would have liked him vastly better without his gun,” but while Sylvia sat in that tree her eyes and mouth became that same vessel. She could decide to climb down and tell the hunter where the bird and its mate nested, killing them, or she could keep their secret and allow the two creatures to live. If she told the hunter, she would have been just as bad, if not worse than him. The forest trusted her enough to bring her to the top of the tree, so could Sylvia hold as much power of the gun in her hands as the hunter could while killing the heron? This was where Sylvia made her final decision, and one that will change the course of her life and what she views as truly