Examples Of Diction In A White Heron

The journey's that heroes and heroines travel upon are usually a wary one that end in success or remorse. Though normally dramatized to a smaller level, Sarah Orne Jewett styles her heroine’s journey with literary elements such as imagery, diction, and point of view that shape the way the short story is derived. The diction that Jewett uses within her short story A White Heron is styled to make her young heroine seem to possess “utmost bravery” (18) and therefore sets the mood of the story. She uses diction and dramatized her character with terms like “ daring steps” (35) and vast and awesome” (69). Furthermore the events in the story add to the dramatization Jewett creates, such as the climbing of the great pine tree. As the young Sylvia begins to climb the tree, Jewett writes “Sylvia began with utmost bravery to mount to the top of it, with tingling eager blood coursing through the channels of her whole frame” (17-20). This depicts the eagerness and nervousness of the character Sylvia, and Jewett styles the character and tone of the story through this.

Jewett uses imagery as a tool to make the audience feel what the character Sylvia is feeling. Jewett uses phrases such as “More than all the hawks, and bats, and moths, and even the sweet-voiced thrushes, was the brave, beating heart of the solitary gray-eyed child” (49-52) to have the audience see what the tree itself feels. She uses this imagery to give personification to the tree, as the tree can feel too; the tree is a living thing just like Sylvia is. Jewett uses the point of view to sell to the audience how Jewett dramatizes the story more than diction and