A White Heron

Sylvia’s adoration of nature creates one of the story’s most prominent themes: Protecting the Natural World. Sylvia, whose name means “of the woods,” is a nine-year-old girl who explores the wilderness around her grandmother’s farm and revels in the forest and wildlife. Early on, her grandmother reflects:

[T]here never was such a child for straying about out-of-doors since the world was made! Everybody said that it was a good change for a little maid who had tried to grow for eight years in a crowded manufacturing town, but, as for Sylvia herself, it seemed as if she never had been alive at all before she came to live at the farm (670).

Sylvia feels that she belongs to this setting of rural Maine and that she didn’t have a full existence until she entered this scenic landscape. Upon Sylvia’s first moments at the farm, when the cat purrs as she brushes her legs in her grandmother’s quaint home, she whispers that it’s a “beautiful place to live in, and she should never wish to go home” (670). Life in a city didn’t suit introverted Sylvia, revealing through her character that conservationism is viewed as superior to industrialism.

To further establish Sylvia as a girl of the woods, the narrator says she knows the land by memory, every “foot o’ ground” (673), to the point that the wild animals count “her as one o’ themselves” (673). The lines are blurred between human and animal, for Sylvia is so connected with creatures like the cow and heron that she doesn’t feel scared of them or different from the wild beasts. In contrast, she’s “afraid of folks” (670), so shy that she can barely talk to anyone unless prompted. Separated from the bustling society of urban life, Sylvia finally experiences contentment and tranquility in the wilderness.

The literary technique of personification adds to the theme of environmentalism and Sylvia’s character growth. Although Sylvia struggles to converse with people, she feels no stress when she speaks with her cow or expresses herself to the great pine tree by touching his boughs and hoping she makes it up his branches safely. The cow, Mistress Moolly, is referred to with pronouns of “she” rather than “it,” already establishing her as gendered, and she has personality enough to “hide herself away among the high huckleberry bushes” (669). The cow is also intelligent enough to stand still so the bell around her neck won’t ring and reveal her location. Mistress Moolly is called a “companion” to Sylvia, showing the girl is friends with animals. The cow, pine tree, and heron are all Sylvia’s friends, viewed as the equals of human beings.

Jewett juxtaposes her admiration for nature with the attack on it by modern society. By inserting the hunter into the story, Jewett creates tension and conflict for Sylvia, for the hunter represents an ambush on pastoral life by modern society. Sylvia has experienced both urban and rural lifestyles, and she’s formed a deep appreciation for nature while recalling the impositions and expectations of cities.

Furthermore, when the hunter-ornithologist enters, he literally and figuratively disturbs the quiet of Sylvia’s life, for he whistles unlike the friendly birds but with “a boy’s whistle, determined and somewhat aggressive” (671). Sylvia is “horror-stricken” to hear the hunter’s call; this strong word choice of “horror-stricken” instills unease and fear immediately about the hunter. Jewett made the hunter the lone male in the story and suggests that males as a group are “determined and somewhat aggressive.” The story works on many levels due to the tension between Sylvia and the hunter, which illustrates conflicts between conservation and industrialism, romanticism and rationalism, and women and men.

The hunter’s appearance also ignites Sylvia’s burgeoning sexuality, for she considers him “handsome” and has “never seen anybody so charming and delightful” (675). The narrator says that her “woman’s heart, asleep in the child, was vaguely thrilled by a dream of love” (675). At age nine, Sylvia experiences her first romantic feelings, perhaps a pubescent blossoming of sensuality. One can consider the hunter her first “crush”; she is briefly infatuated with him.

From the revisionist fairy tale perspective, the hunter is the “prince” who claims her affection and attention. At first, Sylvia is so captivated, she “grieves” not finding the heron for him. The hunter’s gun is a symbol of human (and especially male) dominance over nature. It confuses and scares Sylvia:

All day long he [the hunter] did not once 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 (674).

Youthful and innocent, Sylvia views the man’s hunting as hypocritical, for she believes he shouldn’t be killing the creatures he claims to admire.

Sylvia undergoes a profound personal journey. Her growth is most illuminated when she climbs the pine tree. She overcomes her fear of the “dangerous” ascent with a “spirit of adventure” and “wild ambition” (675) so she can attain the “triumph” of making “known the secret” of the heron’s location (676). She’s motivated by her care for the hunter and desire to earn $10 for her impoverished family. Once she reaches the top, however, Sylvia has an epiphany. The great pine tree symbolizes power and potential, giving Sylvia a new outlook on her abilities and pleasure. Gazing upon the forest’s glory, green marshes, churches, farms, and the sea, Sylvia’s heart changes. She witnesses this “vast and awesome world” from above, feeling as if “she too could fly among the clouds” (677).

She locates the heron, which is like a “single floating feather” (678). The feather simile shows how fragile the heron’s life is, for Sylvia could reveal it to the hunter. She sees the awe-inspiring white heron flying, then landing and grooming its “feathers for the new day” in a nearby tree (678). After observing the world from this aerial view, Sylvia’s spirit of ecology and love for wilderness is restored. She learns to respect and protect her beloved woods, taking seriously the Individual’s Role in Conservation.

Sylvia realizes she must not let the goals of the hunter become her goals. She and the hunter are at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. The hunter wants to kill and mount the heron in a collection, but Sylvia wants to protect the entire ecosystem, especially after deepening her empathy for the heron by seeing the world through its eyes at the tree’s top.

Sylvia remains silent during the climax of the story. She returns from the pine tree to Mrs. Tilley, and the moment comes for her to reveal the heron’s home. But she doesn’t answer even though her grandmother rebukes her because she wants the money. The hunter waits with “appealing eyes” (678), but she refuses to satisfy his wishes. The hunter wants something from Sylvia, whereas nature is still and silent, like Sylvia, and doesn’t ask anything of her. She respects the value of the heron’s life and the broader natural world when she rejects the hunter and doesn’t “give away” the heron’s secret (679). Sylvia’s decision to remain silent reflects the value she places on the natural world that is great than the financial or romantic incentive.