A White Heron

851 Words2 Pages

The Marxists ideology is reveals the ways in which issues of production, wealth and power structure the story. Throughout a fiction story “A white heron” by Jewett, Marxist analysis that a transformation of the living heron into a commodity and the conversion of the heron into a commodity conflict with the way Sylvia thinks about the heron. Furthermore, there is a connection link to Althusser’s terms as bad subject and good subject while Marxist analyzing. As we know that the white heron is rare animals which mean need to be protecting that ensures the extinction will never happened. However, from Marxist’s point of view that the heron seems to be a product which can exchange for the profits. Now, the white heron is no longer invaluable. …show more content…

Sylvia wants to gain his approval, and she and her grandmother need the money, but her conflict develops once she does find the heron's nest. “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. Where was the white heron's nest in the sea of green branches, and was this wonderful sight and pageant of the world the only reward for having climbed to such a giddy height? (page 5 of A White Heron)”. After climbing the tall pine and viewing the beautiful world in which the heron lives, Sylvia sees the heron itself. Its beauty and grace speak to her soul. For a little while, she lives in the heron's world and is changed forever. Thus, the thought of exchange the white heron as a commodity for such amount of money conflict with the way Sylvia thinks about or understands the heron. This conflict splits Sylvia in two parts which were good subject and bad subject in Althusser’s terms. Marxists states: “… the 'bad subjects' who on occasion provoke the intervention of one of the detachments of the (repressive) State apparatus. But the vast majority of (good) subjects work all right 'all by themselves', i.e. by ideology (whose concrete forms are realized in the Ideological State Apparatuses). (Literary Theory: An anthology, page

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