White Heron - Sarah Orne

White Heron - Sarah Orne Jewett

This is a story with several important themes, and one of them is pastoral innocence coming into contact and into conflict with the loss of innocence in a modern, industrial world. The tone, conflict and character development in this story follows along the lines of what is known as American literary realism; indeed, realism is evident in a story when character is more critical to the story than plot or the actual action. Realism is a strategy in which ethical choices are at hand, the story line is plausible, and humans are placed in natural world settings.

In a White Heron, those elements are very much present. This is a story in which the character of this innocent girl is more important to the reader than the precise steps that are taken in the plot. This is a very intriguing and original tale about the innocence of a girl who seems more like the creatures of the natural world than she seems like young people her own age. The story embraces the changes and challenges facing a young girl as she is confronted with a potential loss of innocence.

Indeed, nine-year-old Sylvia is the central character, the protagonist; she is a working class girl but readers don't know exactly what city she lives near but it is in New England, near a manufacturing center. This city near where she is living is an industrially focused metropolis, and the shy Sylvia has somehow grown "afraid of folks" (598, Norton Anthology of American Literature), which when one thinks about it is not that unusual for a girl who "...feels as if she were a part of the gray shadows and moving leaves..."

Sylvia has been adopted by her grandmother, a widow, and lives in a tiny house in the middle of a wooded area. What readers know about Sylvia right away is that she loves this natural world setting and is not involved in any apparent stress or pressure. That wooded world where she daily has to hunt down her dairy cow is something of a metaphor for a pastoral place beyond the boundary of the real and ugly world.

Jewett writes (page 597, Norton) that Sylvia "...had all the time there was, and very little use to make of it." And so with all that time on her hands, it's reasonable to expect an alert yet shy young girl with no playmates to become fascinated with birds and animals in the forest. Sylvia's grandmother mentioned that Sylvia had a knack of "...straying about out-of-doors" and grandma also believed that the "...wild creatures counts her one o' themselves" (599).

This child could be considered a metaphor for innocence in the genre of realism. She could well be thought of as a symbol of what the world was like before industrialization, before wars, greed, lust for power and control of nature, and before the invention of weapons that kill. Her heart "beat fast with pleasure" as she listened to the "thrushes"; many young girls' hearts would beat fast at the idea of going to a movie, or the mall, or a party with many friends at hand. But Sylvia is part of the world of trees, birds, and the solitude that is part of the natural world, away from the stress and impersonal relationships of thousands of people on busy sidewalks.

Sylvia is walking in the forest fairly late for her, and she had just been thinking about the "red-faced boy" who bullied her back when she still lived in the city, when suddenly she hears a "clear whistle" and is "horror-stricken" (p. 598). This is a dramatic use of narrative by Jewett, because normally a person wouldn't be "horror-stricken" by a mere whistle; a person would be perhaps startled, and curious, but "horror-stricken" seems a bit much, although it was a "somewhat aggressive" whistle.

The enemy" - which is Jewett's way of building some conflict into this otherwise pastoral story (and perhaps some foreshadowing as well) - had found her there in the woods, claiming he was lost, and hence in this part of the story innocence has been partially disturbed. Not only that, but here was now an intruder into Sylvia's life who didn't have the same reverence for birds as she did, a person who in fact shot birds and stuffed them as prizes and trophies.

And now comes the second intrusion into innocence: the hunter is offering money, ten dollars, to any person who might be able to lead him to the white heron. As much as Sylvia loves the wild birds, and as deeply as she reveres the white heron, she is tempted by the money. Money has a way of corrupting even the most fair-minded and gentle people, and that is where this story is leading at this point. The pine tree that is the "last of its generation" (601) was very tall and Sylvia believed that if she could climb to the top, she could maybe see the ocean from there. And now she was excited in a new way about the tree, because not only could she see the sea from the top of the tree, she might be able to locate the secret nest of the white heron.

Readers now know that Sylvia is changing, and her changes have come because of the intrusion of the young hunter. On page 600 readers learn that Sylvia would have liked the young hunter "vastly better without his gun," and on 601 Sylvia can't understand why a person would kill birds and yet she watched the hunter "...with loving admiration." That seems rather paradoxical for a girl so naive and so connected to and with the natural world, to be charmed by a man who kills the things she loves. It doesn't make sense at first, but then the realization that she had a "woman's heart...asleep in a child," and was "vaguely thrilled by a dream of love."

Critic Kelly Griffith, writing in the Colby Library Quarterly (Griffith 1985), notes that the tall pine tree was harder to climb than Sylvia thought it would be, as she creeps out before dawn in an excited adventure of discovery. But the tree also has magical qualities; it is "...her supernatural guardian," Griffith writes. The tree itself if "amazed" that Sylvia, "this determined spark of human spirit,' is climbing it." It is a "wholly triumphant" experience for Sylvia to have actually have reached the very top of this tall tree for the first time. So here is a girl who is fascinated with the stirrings inside her, caused both by a handsome male that attracts her and by the possibility of making some money from him and being able to buy a number of nice things she has been longing for.

But the experience of climbing the tree, and the difficult trek back down the tree, and the fact that the old pine "must have loved his new dependent" more than all the "hawks, bats, and moths" because this brave young girl had a "beating heart" of a "solitary gray-eyed child" (602). She could see the sea in the distance (the sun made a "golden dazzle over it") and two hawks flew toward the sun. This was a mystical experience for her. She saw so many things from up there that she hadn't seen before, and among the things she saw was the white heron's nest. The narrator at this point appears to be the tall pine tree itself.

Now look down again Sylvia, where the green marsh is set among the shining birches and dark hemlocks," the tree says to her. And look, look, here comes the white heron now (603) a single "...floating feather" rising up from the "dead hemlock" and comes close to her while she hangs on at the top of the giant tree. This is like the phoenix rising, in a sense, from what might have become a dead bird (if she had told the hunter where it was) into what is now a "sweep of wing and outstretched slender neck and crested head" (603). And the tree talks to her again, although it may be Jewett's way of bringing the little girl's consciousness into the story; "...do not move a foot or a finger, little girl, do not send an arrow of light and consciousness from your two eager eyes, for the heron has perched on a pine bough not far from yours..."

Sylvia hears the heron calling back to his mate (this is the first time the reader has learned that there are two herons) and watches him "plume his feathers for a new day!" She knows his secret at this moment, and still she has to climb down the dangerous trek to the bottom of the tree; she is "ready to cry" because the rough bark and sharp branches are hard on her soft little girl's hands. She is ready at this point to tell the hunter the white heron's whereabouts. But when she gets back to her grandmother's house, and finds the young hunter and her grandmother waiting at the door, and questioning her, and when that "...splendid moment has come to speak of the dead hemlock tree" and the treasure it holds, she "...does not speak after all, though the old grandmother fretfully rebukes her." This man can make them "rich" with his ten-dollar reward, and they are very poverty stricken.

Here is where Jewett shows the realism in her literature. Sylvia's character is very important at this point in the story because she decides against selling the white heron out for ten dollars. Sylvia isn't sure why she is doing it, and is even a bit perplexed; "...when the great world for the first time puts out a hand to her, must she thrust it aside for a bird's sake?" Jewett poses. Sylvia hears the "murmur of the pine's green branches" in her ears; she recalls how beautiful that white bird was as it came flying through "...the golden air" and how she and the white heron witnessed the sea and the morning "together."

No, she can't sell the bird out. This is an ethical decision she must make, which is in line with the definition of realism. And according to author Richard Chase (who wrote the book the American Novel and Its Tradition), writing in the Washington State University Web pages (www.wsu.edu/-campbelld/amlit/realism.htm),in realism, "...characters appear in their real complexity of temperament and motive." and, Chase continues, characters in realism-based literature are "...in explicable relation to nature, to each other, to their social class, to their own past." In Sylvia's life she has a strong link and connection to nature, much stronger than any relationship with people (yes, she loves her grandmother, but she loves the woods and its critters more); and she has a strong relation to her own past, which was not all that pleasant and she is not eager to return to a situation in the city where a bully can push her and scare her.

The end of the story leaves quite a bit to be desired, in the mind of this reader. She has made her decision, and she has chosen nature over commercial profit. Readers respect that and hence this has been seen as a "conservation book" according to Griffith's essay. And so, in standing up for the natural world and its creatures - even after being love-struck to a degree by this handsome young man - readers would like to think of Sylvia as a hero. But the way Jewett ends the story is baffling. "Dear loyalty, that suffered a sharp pang as the guest went away disappointed later in the day," Jewett writes in the last paragraph (603-04). If he had been able to shoot the coveted white heron, and if he had stayed around longer, Sylvia "could have served and followed him and loved him as a dog loves!"

She is not talking about puppy love her, but she is talking about devotion, because dogs are very devoted to their owners. And this isn't some foolish little girl having a star-struck relationship with an older fellow - this is a thoughtful, bright girl who has found a place for her in this woods. In hindsight, she hears the "echo of his whistle haunting the pasture path" as she brings the cow home in the evenings. She even forgets how sad she was at the sight of him killing birds and seeing "their pretty feathers stained and wet with blood." A bird dropping quietly to the ground, after it had the magical ability to fly free in the air above and around the trees, is a very tragic sight.

And, Jewett wonders if the birds she loves so much were "...better friends than the hunter might have been?" Well, "who can tell," Jewett goes on. That spot might have been a good one to end this story, but Jewett went on another couple sentences, asking readers to "...bring your gifts and graces and tell your secrets to this lonely country child."

One wonders, and Griffith agrees, why this story had to end with a love theme, when this is a nine-year-old girl, and she had no assurance that even had she shown the hunter where the white heron's nest was, that he would stay and be kind to her. Why would Jewett write that Sylvia will be lonely now, when before the hunter's arrival she thrived in the woods, and loved the sound of birds (not the shrill sound of a hunter's whistle)? Griffith sees Sylvia as a hero, who is now risking loneliness after saving the life of the white bird.

Another critic, Gwen L. Nagel, writing an essay in Reference Guide to Short Fiction, agrees with the scholarship of Catherine B. Stevenson, who suggests Jewett (through Sylvia's ethical decision as to whether or not to sell out the heron's nest position to the hunter) is creating a "...rite of passage from the safe world of childhood to the precarious, lonely, self-determined world of adulthood" (Nagel 1994). This seems a reasonable and safe observation of the theme of realism within the story; it could be added though that maybe Jewett was also suggesting that there is no safe world, anywhere, ever, and when a previously secure natural world is interrupted by the potential of violence, good sense and ethics must prevail. And it might also be suggested that women are better prepared to make those ethical decisions, even as children.

Another writer that Nagel brings into her essay, Annis Pratt, sees the story as "a version of the traditional fairy tale," Nagel explains. Other scholars see a psychoanalytic reading, Nagel goes on, and still others find "...a complex pattern of sexual symbolism in the story."

Still another critic alluded to by Nagel, Eugene H. Pool, sees "a parallel between Sylvia's repudiation of mature love and Jewett's own choice never to marry." Some feminist critics believe that the story represents a "confrontation between a patriarchal value system" - a young man with cash in his pocket and a weapon for power - and the "matriarchal world" where a female-focused "natural sanctuary" exists.

Is the story a "repudiation of the Cinderella text"? That's how critic Josephine Donovan sees it, according to Nagel's essay. Donovan asserts that the story "culminates the anti-romance tradition" that is a "hallmark of women's literary realism."

Writing in Studies in Short Fiction, critic Michael Atkinson observes that Jewett's ending has a "satisfying impact" which puts the reader "to rest." Leading up to the conclusion, the scene in which the tree talks to the girl is a "genuinely extravagant" bit of narrative, Atkinson writes. Having a tree's thoughts reported to a girl who is playing a heroic role is the author's way of "urgently whispering counsel to the main character," Atkinson goes on. And although the tree speaking its mind is a departure from the realism of the rest of the story, is seems "perfectly natural" to the reader because what the tree does and says contributes "so directly to the effect of the tale."

Echoing what this paper asserted at the beginning - that loss of innocence is a big part of this story - Atkinson relates that "loss of innocence" has been a "mainstay of literature and myth from Genesis through Milton, Joyce, Salinger, and beyond - a theme of proven power." That said, Atkinson then goes on to say that Jewett's story is about innocence "preserved," and since that theme is much more rare than innocence lost, it adds class and depth to the story. Atkinson is absolutely correct in saying that Jewett has successfully convinced readers emotionally that by staying in her world of innocence Sylvia has taken a positive step "in her development as a person."

By making the decision to keep the white heron's nest a secret, Sylvia did not come across as a person "retreating" or "cowering" but rather she shows strength, the same kind of strength she showed by climbing the tree, in Atkinson's viewpoint. The climb up the tree is "frightening," Atkinson explains, but readers pull for her to not only make it safely up to the top, but they also pull for her to locate the mystical white bird so she then can make her decision as to whether to help the hunter or not. Nature rises up to help the girl in the tree scene, Atkinson continues, and once she is up there higher than she has even been before, the entire fiction of the story "...has transcended its human limitations." By transcending those human bonds, the story then steps "outside the limits of human relationship which lured and threatened Sylvia."