My blog on "A White Heron"

The main characters in the "A White Heron" realism narrative by Sarah Orne Jewett, are Sylvia, her Grandmother, (Mrs. Tilley) and the man who Sylvia, at first mistook for a boy, because he came whistling down the path that she had been walking on just like a boy that would occasionally tease her. Her obstinant cow is a minor character.

The antagonist, I believe, is the man The young man presents the challenge of the killing something alive, natural and beautiful, or should it be protected, to the girl Sylvia who was named after the woods. Sylvia also has a crush on the scientist, which makes her decision more difficult.

I believe the story is eastern in its region of origin, because of the nearness of the sea and the salt marsh, along with other descriptions of the land that give me an indication of regionality. The woods, the birds, the levelness of the land makes me think of the terrain slightly inland of an island off of the New England coastline. Many New Englanders did during the period of the writing of the piece like the grandmother in the work did and still do, pronounced and continue to pronounce the word marsh without the consonant 'r'. By watching a great deal of PBS television shows I have become familiar with the New England accent.

Sylvia loves the land, the trees, the animals, and even the temperamental cow. The nine year old child hand feeds the animals, even the blue jays, which are extremely shy birds in the presence of humans. I have fed wild animals by hand and have helped raise wild birds. One has to have a quiet and serene disposition as well as a love of wild creatures in order for the animals to trust a human enough to eat from the hand.

The setting is around the state of Maine, I believe, because the author had a tendency to write about the places that she knew, according to her bio.

The climax of the story, to me,of the climbing of the huge tree by Sylvia was something that I do
not believe I would have done for any amount of money no matter how poor I was. I really thought Sylvia was going to fall out of that tree on her way down. It was a surprise to me and the characters that she made it back home, at all, much less scratched-up and covered with tree sap.

Sarah Jewett's narrative left me wondering if I could, at the age of nine, being poor, and needing money desperately, have turned down an offer of money for sinply giving a hunter the location of a bird's nest. Sylvia did not know, probably that the Snowy Egret was an endangered species at the time. I do not know if the onothologist knew either. Did the autor know? Was there a little bit of Universal Omniscience going on? Anyway, it seems as if the writer made the child wise beyond her years at the conclusion of the story.

I would like to see if Sylvia's island really exists. It sounds like a romantical place to me, a place that I would enjoy visiting.