A White Heron Essay

Comment on how the author makes Sylvia a very special character Sylvia, the main character in Sarah Orne Jewett’s ‘A White Heron’, was a very special character. She gave up money, and gave up her love to a man in order to protect the nature. Through these actions readers can understand why Sylvia was special. Sylvia was a very special character by giving up a chance to earn money from the man. The man that Sylvia met was a collector who hunted birds and stuffed them. He met Sylvia and wanted Sylvia to give him shelter for the night. After knowing that Sylvia knew the forest very well, the man wanted to offer Sylvia ten dollars to show him where the White Heron was. At the time ten dollars could buy many things, but she refused to accept the ten dollars to protect the white heron, thus showing her care of nature by rejecting the temptation of money. Another example of Sylvia as a very special character was her willingness in giving up the chance to follow and love the men she liked. Sylvia was a very shy girl who didn’t like to talk to people and had left the cities for the countryside. The collector had proved to Sylvia that he was very kind and generous. Because of this Sylvia watched the guy with loving admirations because she had never seen anyone so charming and delightful. Through the description of how Sylvia thought about the collector, readers can tell that Sylvia liked him and ‘wanted to serve him and follow him and love him as a dog loves its master’. However, after seeing how amazing the White Heron was, Sylvia decided to protect the bird and gave up the chance of telling how she felt about the collector, which makes Sylvia very different from most children at her age. Most people would not give up their love, and would not care if a wild creature would get killed and collected. Therefore, Sylvia was a special character. What made Sylvia most special was that she loved nature so deeply. The people in Sylvia’s time did not have the sense of protecting nature, but Sylvia was not one of those people. This is shown though the description at the start of the story where Sylvia is described as ‘a child who loved the out-of-doors so much’, and decided that the woods ‘is a lovely place to live, I’ll never want to return to the city’. Sylvia loved the countryside and the forests. Also, she was very close with the animals in the forest. ‘She knew every foot of the ground in the woods as well as the wild creatures that live there. Squirrels come and eat from her hand and birds too, thus the fact that Sylvia felt at home in the countryside and in the woods makes her a very special character. Throughout the story ‘A White Heron’, Sylvia is depicted as a very special character. This is shown through her determination not to see the White Heron harmed. She gave up the chance to earn money and to love someone just to conserve the nature, to which the heron belonged. A White Heron Essay â€Å"A White Heron† by Sarah Orne Jewett tells the story of a young girl named Sylvia who has to make the difficult decision whether or not to tell a hunter where a very rare bird is living. Sylvia lives with her grandmother, Mrs. Tilley, out in the country. Daily she takes out her grandmother’s cow, Mistress Molly, to eat grass. One day on her way back home, she encounters a man in the woods who informs her he is lost and would like a place to stay. Mrs. Tilley allows him to stay, and while they all get acquainted, the young man explains he’s an ornithologist searching for a very rare bird, a white heron. He will pay ten dollars to whoever can help him find the bird. Sylvia and the man search, but constantly turn up empty handed. One night she decides to climb a tree where she believes the heron might be. She spots the bird and goes home to inform the man. Although Sylvia later regrets this decision, she has a change of heart and says nothing about finding the bird. He eventually leaves without the bird or knowledge of where it’s hiding. Jewett shows how making a life or death decision is always a hard choice to make. The title of the story, â€Å"A White Heron†, implies that it will be an important symbol. A white heron is a contextual symbol as it can mean different things to different people. In this specific story it symbolizes life and the hunter symbolizes death. If Sylvia gives away the secret of where the heron is hiding, she will essentially give up his life to the hunter. He will be killed. She stands her ground and doesn’t let him know where the heron is although she knows that if she did, she would get a remarkable reward. The heron is a physical symbol since it can be touched. It is shown many times throughout the story, â€Å"She remembers how the white heron came flying through the golden air 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† (628). She feels as though she is one of them and they have had a special moment. The heron is also used as a visual symbol in this story. â€Å"The birds sang louder and louder. At last the sun came up bewilderingly bright. Sylvia could see the white sails of ships out at sea, and the clouds that were purple and rose-colored and yellow at first began to fade away† (627). There is an image painted out for the reader to see what Sylvia is seeing. Jewett uses imagery to help point out a connection between two irrelevant thing, Sylvia and the white heron. There are many similes throughout the whole story, â€Å"Sylvia began with utmost bravery to mount to the top of it, with tingling eager blood coursing the channels of her whole frame, with her bare feet and fingers, that pinched and held like bird’s claws to the monstrous ladder reaching up, almost to the sky itself† (627). And in a different instance: â€Å"Now look down again, Sylvia, where the green marsh is set among the shining birches and dark hemlocks; there where you saw the white heron once you will see him again; look look! White spot of him like a single floating feather comes up from the dead hemlock and grows larger, and rises, and comes close at last, and goes by the landmark pine with steady sweep of wing and outstretched slender neck and crested head† (628). The use of the heron as a symbol of life and the hunter as a symbol of death really shows a contrast between good and evil. It isn’t about the money for Sylvia. It’s about doing the right thing and making the decision she felt was the correct one.