Theme Of Loyalty In A White Heron And Shiloh

A character’s emotions of loneliness and loyalty are often shown by the experiences that happen in their lives. In both stories “A White Heron” and “Shiloh,” loneliness is created by the lack of communication by the main characters. Other characters in the stories try to establish or prove loyalty between the main characters or nature by influencing. However, the lack of communication intensifies the loneliness and destroys loyalty to family members while establishing loyalty to self or to nature.

Sarah Jewett’s story “A White Heron” provides the reader with an example of how a lonely, little girl can become loyal to nature. Throughout the story, Sylvia is tempted by a stranger with money to break the loyal trust to her friends in nature.

Violation is shown by the option for Sylvia showing the hunter the nest. Death would have been presented if Sylvia let the hunter kill the birds. Instead of Sylvia showing where the bird nest was, she allowed a vision of life for herself and the birds. She also showed the beauty of loyalty and how far it can go to protect what is truly care about. The story ended with a “Dear loyalty” (Jewett, 211) to thank loyalty for staying true and not letting her give in to the guest’s wise

Maybe the loneliness destroyed not only the loyalty between Norma Jean and Leroy, but it destroyed her enough to end her life. Bobbie Mason answered a question in an interview about assumptions of the story and voiced, “I hear that some students think Norma Jean is going to jump because she’s standing on the edge of a cliff at the end of the story. That’s so weird. Maybe Leroy would jump but not Norma Jean. She’s a survivor” (Lyons et al. 466). Norma Jean is strong enough to handle loneliness and maintains loyal to her husband. Leroy created the loneliness between the two by always being on the road which led to him not being loyal to his