Sarah Orne Jewett

“A White Heron” (1886)

POINT OF VIEW:

• Third Person -- Omniscient or Limited Omniscient?

SETTING:

• NEW ENGLAND wilderness
• The woods
• Filled with shadows one JUNE evening, just before 8:00 p.m.
• Bright sunset still glimmered faintly
• Going away from the western light
• Striking deep into the dark woods
• The farm is well maintained, comfortable, “like a hermitage”
• The OTHER SIDE of the woods -- bright green swamp grass -- an open place where the sunshine always seemed strangely yellow and hot, where tall, nodding rushes grew, and her grandmother had warned her that she might sink in the soft black mud underneath and never be heard of more -- not far beyond were the salt marshes and beyond those was the SEA, the sea which Sylvia wondered and dreamed about, but never had looked upon, though its great voice could often be heard above the noise of the woods on stormy nights

SYLVIA:

• A little girl
• Her feet are familiar with the path
• Has all the time there was, and very little use to make of it
• Has no playmates but the cow
• “there never was such a child for straying about out-of-doors since the world was made!” -- Importance of her NAME!
• “a good change for a little maid who had tried to grow for eight years in a crowded manufacturing town”
• “it seems as if she never had been alive at all before she came to live at the farm”
• “she thought often with wistful compassion of a wretched dry geranium that belonged to a town neighbor”
• “Afraid of folks”
• When she arrived, “Sylvia whispered that this was a beautiful place to live in, and she never should wish to go home”
• “she was not often in the woods so late as this, and it made her feel as if she were a part of the gray shadows and the moving leaves”
• She came to the farm one year ago
• “this little woods-girl”
• Is alarmed when the stranger wants to stay at her house
• Calls herself “SYLVY” -- a diminutive form of her full, proper name
• “She knew by instinct that her grandmother did not comprehend the gravity of the situation.  She must be mistaking the stranger for one of the farmer-lads of the region.”
• “There ain’t a foot o’ ground she don’t know her way over, and the wild creatur’s counts her one o’ themselves.”

MISTRESS MOOLLY:

• Her cow
• The cow is personified (anthropomorphism?)
• A plodding, dilatory, provoking creature
• A valued companion
• Does not wait at the pasture bars
• Her greatest pleasure to hide herself away
• Has discovered how to stand perfectly still so as not to ring her bell
• Gives plenty of good milk

MRS. TILLEY:

• Sylvia’s grandmother
• “made the unlikely choice of Sylvia from her daughter’s houseful of children” to bring back to the farm
• A hostess “whose long slumbering hospitality seemed to be easily awakened”
• She is gracious
• “the old woman’s quaint talk”
• “the hostess gossiped frankly”
• Uses LOCAL COLOR dialect
• “I’d ha’ seen the world myself if it had been so I could” -- but she cannot because she’s a WOMAN

THE STRANGER:

• Sylvia remembers “the great red-faced boy who used to chase and frighten her”
• She is “horror-stricken to hear a clear whistle not very far away.  Not a bird’s whistle, which would have a sort of friendliness, but a boy’s whistle, determined and somewhat aggressive.”
• She tries to hide
• “The enemy had discovered her, and called out to her in a very cheerful and persuasive tone”
• Sylvia answers almost inaudibly
• “She did not dare to look boldly at the tall young man, who carried a gun over his shoulder”
• He says, “I have lost my way, and need a friend very much.  Don’t be afraid.” -- Tone is patronizing?
• Makes a demand for milk
• He was “surprised to find so clean and comfortable a little dwelling in this New England wilderness.”  He has known “the horrors of its most primitive housekeeping, and the dreary squalor of that level of society which does not rebel at the companionship of hens” -- condescending?
• “He looked round at the little girl who sat, very demure but increasingly sleepy”
• He is making a collection of birds -- “they are stuffed and preserved, dozens and dozens of them”
• The ornithologist
• Also described as “the handsome stranger”
• Offers ten dollars, desperately, for the heron -- a BRIBE? -- an offer for her to PROSTITUTE her friends? -- he is determined to find it
• Also described as “the young sportsman”
• Sylvia keeps him company
• He is a “friendly lad, who proved to be most kind and sympathetic”
• He has knowledge of the birds
• He gives her a jack-knife -- a GIFT? a BRIBE?
• “All day long he did not make her troubled or afraid except when he brought down some unsuspecting singing creature from its bough.  Sylvia would have liked him vastly better without his gun; she could not understand why he killed the very birds he seemed to like so much.”
• “Sylvia still watched the young man with loving admiration.  She had never seen anybody so charming and delightful; the woman’s heart asleep in the child, was vaguely thrilled by a dream of love.  Some premonition of that great power stirred and swayed these young foresters who traversed the solemn woodlands with soft-footed silent care”
• “the young man going first and Sylvia following, fascinated” -- a WOMAN’S PLACE is to follow
• “She grieved because the longed-for white heron was elusive, but she did not lead the guest, she only followed, and there was no such thing as speaking first.  The sound of her own unquestioned voice would have terrified her” -- a WOMAN’S PLACE is to remain silent
• “He was sure from the way the shy little girl looked once or twice yesterday that she had at least seen the white heron, and now she must be persuaded to tell”

SYLVIA’S TRIP (a JOURNEY, an INITIATION):

• “Half a mile from home, at the farther edge of the woods, where the land was highest, a great pine-tree stood” -- a place where she is all but forbidden to go? -- the HEIGHT = view, clarity of vision, knowledge, wisdom, enlightenment, etc.
• Sylvia “had always believed that whoever climbed to the top of it could see the OCEAN”
• It could also be used to see where the white heron flew and mark the place and find the hidden nest!
• She wants to find it to impress the stranger -- “It was almost too real and too great for the childish heart to bear”
• She cannot sleep
• “The short summer night seemed as long as the winter darkness” -- SIMILE
• She listens “with a sense of comfort and companionship” to the birds
• NARRATOR! -- “Alas, if the great wave of human interest which flooded for the first time this dull little life should sweep away the satisfactions of an existence heart to heart with nature and the dumb life of the forest!”
• The tree is personified -- it is asleep yet
• SYLVIA is given characteristics of a BIRD -- “with her bare feet and fingers, that pinched and held like bird’s claws”
• Some danger in the ascent of one tree and transfer to another
• “Sylvia felt her way easily”
• The TREE is given characteristics of a BIRD -- “the sharp dry twigs caught and held her and scratched her like angry talons”
• The tree seems to lengthen as she climbs
• TREE: “It was like a great main-mast to the voyaging earth; it must truly have been amazed that morning through all its ponderous frame as it felt this determined spark of human spirit creeping and climbing from higher branch to branch … the old pine must have loved his new dependent” -- SYLVIA and the TREE are ONE, they are connected on a spiritual level
• When she reaches the top, “Sylvia’s face was like a pale star” -- SIMILE
• She sees the SEA
• “Sylvia felt as if she too could go flying away among the clouds” -- SYLVIA = BIRD
• NARRATOR! -- “Now look down again, Sylvia …”
• The HERON comes and sits by Sylvia
• “The child gives a long sigh”
• “She knows his secret now”
• Sylvia decides NOT to tell the man where the heron’s nest is!
• Both the grandmother and the man appeal to her
• He can make them rich with money; they are poor now
• “He is so well worth making happy”
• She remains silent!
• WHY DOES SHE REMAIN SILENT? -- 2 paragraphs from the end!  She remembers the TREE and the HERON “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”
• She loved the man “as a dog loves” -- a LOWLY ANIMAL -- shows "loyalty," but it is not "human love"
• NARRATOR! -- final statement

CONFLICTS:

• Manufacturing town vs. country farm
• Outsider / stranger vs. insider / friend
• Upper-class vs. lower-class
• Men vs. women
• Youth vs. age
• Backwater vs. progress
• Love vs. self-respect
• Save / preserve / protect vs. destroy

SYMBOLISM:

• The gun -- a Freudian phallic symbol; also for masculinity, destruction, death -- also the jack-knife?
• The collection of birds
• The white heron -- “a queer tall white bird with soft feathers and long thin legs.  And it would have a nest perhaps in the top of a high tree, made of sticks, something like a hawk’s nest.”
• The tall pine tree

IRONY:

• “Though this chase had been so long that the wary animal herself had given an unusual signal of her whereabouts.”
• The hunter loves birds but kills them

REGIONALISM or LOCAL COLOR?:

• The location / locale
• The cow -- “the horned torment”
• Mrs. Tilley’s dialect
• Serious topic and tone
• Concerned about the "larger truths" rather than just for entertainment