Sisters Reunited A bird whistled. Agnes followed the sound. She was stuck in the woods and her only hope was the bird. She would have laughed at herself if she wasn’t so worried about being lost. The mischievous bird with dark brown feathers whistled louder. Agnes sobbed as tears of fear began to run down her cheeks, “Please lead me home!” Agnes was a free spirited child. She was just over five feet tall with a slender appearance. Her auburn hair and silky bright yellow sundress flowed in the summer breeze that made the thick green leaves on the trees sway in the wind. Her eyes were a deep olive green and she had freckles all over rosy red cheeks. Agnes followed the bird farther as it led her to a river. A ten foot wide gap of raging, wild …show more content…
There had been a search warrant for months, but no one ever found any evidence so the case was closed. Now years later Agnes was facing her best friend she’d never thought she’d see again. Agnes finally spoke up, “Your name is Mary, not Ann Marie.” Mary looked confused. “It’s me your sister, Agnes. Do you remember me?” Mary looked still clueless for a minute. Then Mary’s aqua blue eyes grew wide as she leaped into the water. Mary struggled to swim across the river with the rapids flowing vigorously. Finally, she reached the other side as Agnes helped her out of the water with tears streaming down her face. The two girls couldn’t believe they were standing face to face with each other once again. Then suddenly Mary started to tremble. “What’s wrong?” Agnes asked with concern.. Mary knew the schedule of when the kidnapper comes and leaves. He would be back …show more content…
She had to get her sister out of these dreaded woods right away. Then the soft whistle of the bird came from above her head. The bird led her to find her sister; it had to lead her home now. The bird whistled even louder now. Agnes knew what she needed to do. “Follow me!” Agnes yelled to Mary. The two girls followed a narrow path when suddenly Agnes recognized they were on their way home. Agnes sighed in relief. Suddenly, Agnes heard a deafening scream come from her sister 's mouth. Mary’s tiny feet dug into the ground as a heavy man was forcefully dragged her away; it was the kidnapper. The kidnapper must have weighed close to 250 pounds. He had a jet black ski mask over his face with a black sweatshirt, pants, and shoes. His body appeared disproportionate as his legs were stubby and his torso was lengthy. Agnes’ mind was racing. She needed to save her sister, but how? Agnes looked around frantically when suddenly she saw the bird perched on a pointy, coarse, medium sized rock. Agnes heaved the rock and delivered a strong hit to the kidnapper’s head. The kidnapper glanced up at Agnes, but then his black beady eyes started to spin as he fell to the ground. Mary broke free of his grasp as he now laid on the ground unconscious. The girls made eye contact and then in a split second they began sprinting down the narrow path. The whistling bird soared above them as the girls ran close behind it. Then they came to a clearing where they saw a spacious
We are told of Phoenix?s journey into the woods on a cold December morning. Although we are know that she is traveling through woodland, the author refrains from telling us the reason for this journey. In the midst of Phoenix?s travels, Eudora Welty describes the scene: ?Deep, deep the road went down between the high green-colored banks. Overhead the live-oaks met, and it was as dark as a cave? (Welty 55). The gloomy darkness that the author has created to surround Phoenix in this scene is quite a contrast to the small Negro woman?s positive outlook; Phoenix is a very determined person who is full of life. As Phoenix begins to walk down the dark path, a black dog approaches her from a patch of weeds near a ditch. As he comes toward her, Phoenix is startled and compelled to defend herself: ?she only hit him a little with her cane. Over she went in the ditch, like a little puff of milk-weed? (55). Here, the author contrasts the main character?s strong will with her small, frail phys...
The main character also known as the protagonist is Catherine. She also has two nicknames which are Birdy and Little Bird. Catherine is fourteen years old, and she hates doing her embroidery and spinning. Her physical characteristics are described as “…no beauty, being sun-browned and gray-eyed” (Cushman 5). She is also “with poor eye-sight and a stubborn disposition” (Cushman 5). In any given situation with her suitors she tries to act and look her worst. She cannot act lady-like, and doesn’t like to do any of her chores. Instead “I would rather sit in an apple tree and wonder” (Cushman 5). She is very descriptive when it comes to people and sometimes uses metaphors to compare them to other objects. She is stuck talking to her birds and sometimes Perkin. Catherine is an adventurous adolescent who is stubborn, and always arguing with her father.
She looked back and saw that the bull, his head lowered, was racing toward her. She remained perfectly still, not in fright, but in a freezing unbelief. She stared at the violent black streak bounding toward her as if she had no sense of distance, as if she could not decide at once what his intention was, and the bull had buried his head in her lap, like a wild tormented lover, before her expression changed. One of his horns sank until it pierced her heart and the other curved around her side and held her in an unbreakable grip.
Since its first appearance in the 1886 collection A White Heron and Other Stories, the short story A White Heron has become the most favorite and often anthologized of Sarah Orne Jewett. Like most of this regionalist writer's works, A White Heron was inspired by the people and landscapes in rural New England, where, as a little girl, she often accompanied her doctor father on his visiting patients. The story is about a nine-year-old girl who falls in love with a bird hunter but does not tell him the white heron's place because her love of nature is much greater. In this story, the author presents a conflict between femininity and masculinity by juxtaposing Sylvia, who has a peaceful life in country, to a hunter from town, which implies her discontent with the modernization?s threat to the nature.
Nine-year-old Sylvia is a child who lives in the wood. Her name, ‘‘Sylvia,’’ and her nickname, ‘‘Sylvy,’’ come from the Latin silva meaning ‘‘wood’’ or ‘‘forest.’’ Sylvia lives in the middle of the woods with grandma Tilley and hardly sees anyone else. She remembers when she lived in the city but never wants to return there. However, when she comes across a hunter who is an older man, she enjoys being around another human being and is not sure what to do with the conflicting emotions she starts to feel. He offers to give her money in exchange for giving up the nesting spot of the white heron. She is the only person who can give him what he needs. What she has to think about though is the betrayal of her relationship with nature and whether or not it is worth it. In the end, she does not reveal the heron’s nesting place.
In 1886, author Sarah Orne Jewett wrote a short story “A White Heron.” The premise of the story revolves around a young girl, Sylvia, who is uprooted from her home in the city and taken by her grandmother, Mrs. Tilley, to live out in the middle of a forested, country culture. Sylvia, a nine year old girl, is quiet and shy but goes about business of caring for the family cow where life was so different from the “crowded, manufacturing town”(p.1598) she came from. For the first time in her short life Sylvia understood what it truly felt like to be alive. It is important to understand Sylvia’s character to truly understand the significance of the tree and Sylvia climbing to the top. Personal growth and maturity is an expectation of living but getting the opportunity to experience it in the country, on a farm, is paramount to the changes Sylvia experiences.
As I inched my way toward the cliff, my legs were shaking uncontrollably. I could feel the coldness of the rock beneath my feet when my toes curled around the edge in one last futile attempt at survival. My heart was racing like a trapped bird, desperate to escape. Gazing down the sheer drop, I nearly fainted; my entire life flashed before my eyes. I could hear stones breaking free and fiercely tumbling down the hillside, plummeting into the dark abyss of the forbidding black water. The trees began to rapidly close in around me in a suffocating clench, and the piercing screams from my friends did little to ease the pain. The cool breeze felt like needles upon my bare skin, leaving a trail of goose bumps. The threatening mountains surrounding me seemed to grow more sinister with each passing moment, I felt myself fighting for air. The hot summer sun began to blacken while misty clouds loomed overhead. Trembling with anxiety, I shut my eyes, murmuring one last pathetic prayer. I gathered my last breath, hoping it would last a lifetime, took a step back and plun...
Sylvia was a 9 year old “nature girl” who met a charming ornithologist hunter on a mission to find the allusive white heron. Sylvia was about 8 years old when she moved with her grandmother from the city to a farm, “a good change for a little maid who had tried to grow for eight years in a crowded manufacturing town, but, as for Sylvia herself, it seemed as if she never had been alive at all before she came to live at the farm.” (Jewett, 1884, 1914, qtd in McQuade, et.al., 1999, p. 1641). Sylvia finds the secret, the white heron. Instead of telling the young hunter, she keeps the secret, because in her mind nature is more powerful than her feelings for “the enemy.”
In “A White Heron” written by Sarah Orne Jewett the main character is a little girl named Sylvia. A girl who came from a crowded manufacturing town to live with her grandmother deep in the forest has become a “little woods-girl” (Jewett 64). Sylvia’s life in the forest changed her completely from loving the natural environment. Her closeness to the forest along w...
Looking out across the stone-paved road, she watched the neighborhood inside the coffee colored fence. It was very similar to hers, containing multiple cookie-cutter homes and an assortment of businesses, except no one was there was her color and no one in her neighborhood was their color. All of them had chocolate skin with eyes and hair that were all equally dark. Across the road to her right, a yellow fence contained honey colored people. She enjoyed seeing all the little, squinted almond eyes, much smaller then her own, which were wide set and round. One little, sunshine colored boy with dark straight hair raised his arm and waved his hand, but before she could do the same back her father called her into the house. His lips were pressed and his body was rigid, the blue of his eyes making direct contact with her
Her spry, Timberland-clad foot planted itself upon a jagged boulder, motionless, until her calf muscles tightened and catapulted her small frame into the next stride. Then Sara's dance continued, her feet playing effortlessly with the difficult terrain. As her foot lifted from the ground, compressed mint-colored lichen would spring back into position, only to be crushed by my immense boot, struggling to step where hers had been. My eyes fixated on the forest floor, as fallen trees, swollen roots, and unsteady rocks posed constant threats for my exhausted body. Without glancing up I knew what was ahead: the same dense, impenetrable green that had surrounded us for hours. My throat prickled with unfathomable thirst, as my long-empty Nalgene bottle slapped mockingly at my side. Gnarled branches snared at my clothes and tore at my hair, and I blindly hurled myself after Sara. The portage had become a battle, and the ominously darkening sky raised the potential for casualties. Gritting my teeth with gumption, I refused to stop; I would march on until I could no longer stand.
In A White Heron , the author, Sarah Orne Jewett, describes a young girl who interacts with a number of elements that cause her to discover who she is and what she stands for. Sylvia, being only nine years old and coming from a large family from the demanding city life , is moved to her grandmother’s remote farm where she finds herself to be comfortably isolated from the rest of the world. This, in fact, suits her lack of social ability, and so she finds herself becoming one with nature: both the plants and animals. When a young hunter, with whom she comes to admire greatly, comes along and tries to destroy apart of ‘her’, she finds herself in a conflicting position. Sarah Jewett’s writings had mainly avoided romantic topics by producing stories about people who use logic and independence over romantic inclinations. The author, Sarah Orne Jewett works to discern this sentimentality throughout this short story by using elements such as theme, internal conflict, and realism.
Considering all the methodical aspects of the story of a nine-year-old girl who must choose between protecting a white heron and losing a new friend, the point of view of the story was most ambiguous to critics. “A White Heron” is told in an omniscient third-person point of view. The narrator went from past tense to present tense three times in the story. One of the times that the narrator used present tense was when Sylvia first heard the hunter approaching in the woods, “this little woods-girl is horror-stricken" (Jewett 5). The narrator seems to have more of an interest in Sylvia’s thoughts and feelings than the other characters’ because nothing more is shown of the other characters’ thoughts and feelings besides what they demonstrate through their words and actions. At tim...
Also the narrator is not the only one coming to terms with their identity. Her little brother Laird is developing a desire to do the masculine things around the house. The narrator overhears her mother talking to her father, saying, “Wait till Laird gets bigger you will have some real help.” This represents the family’s characteristic expectations of Laird to follow in his father’s footsteps. “The girl” obviously sensed their higher expectations for Laird and her jealousy began to show. She once made Laird climb the ladder to the top beam, believing that he would get in trouble. But, when her parents arrived it was the narrator that was in trouble, her parents yelling, “Why weren’t you watching him.” This shows the double standard between genders in their family and in the general public. She shared a room with her brother, and at night after he fell asleep, she would stay up and tell her stories. In these stories she would imagine herself as a hero, she was brave and spirited and everyone admired her. These stories represented the woman that she wanted to become; powerful and independent, which was the complete opposite of the stereotypical “girl”, which her family wanted her to become. Another example of the protagonist’s struggle for her identity is her identification with one of the family’s horses, Flora. The father fed his foxes with horse-meat. Therefore, the family would sometimes get healthy
Mare and her family lived in New York City. Her mother was a single parent who tried all her best to make sure that her children had all that the need. Sometimes Mara’s mother Shana didn’t have money, so they went to bed without food. Mara’s life was not how she wanted it to be. She wanted a big house, a father, and a happy big family. Instead her life was the opposite. Her dad died when she was only seven. When her father died, it ruined the family. Her father was the backbone of th...