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Essay about a white heron
Literary analysis on the white heron
Essay about a white heron
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Sarah Orne Jewett’s story “A White Heron” tells of a young girl named Sylvia who lives with her grandmother in a rural area because she is “afraid of folks” (1598). She encountered a hunter one day when she was guiding her milking cow home. The hunter is an ornithologist who is seeking for a rare bird: a white heron. This gave Sylvia’s heart “a wild beat (1600)” because she knew of the rare bird. The hunter offered Sylvia and her grandmother ten dollars if they could aid him in finding the location of the bird. Forgetting about sleep, Sylvia was determined on finding this bird for the hunter and thought of a pine-tree that was the last of its generation. She believed climbing this great pine-tree will help her locate the white heron and please the hunter’s desire of finding the rare bird. Sylvia’s journey up the tree is significant in Sarah Orne Jewett’s story “A White Heron” because it shows that she is generous, one with nature, and the reader gets to understand Sylvia’s point of view. Her desire to satisfy both her grandmother and the hunter led her to climb the great pine-tree, which is a dangerous task for a girl her age. The reader is given a sense of bravery when Sylvia is climbing the tree because she had a tingling feeling with “eager blood coursing the channels of her …show more content…
Sylvia felt like a bird “that pinched and held like bird’s claws (1602)” when she was climbing the tree. When Sylvia is at the top of the tree, the audience assimilates her point of view and grasps the thoughts she is reflecting of. She remembered how she and the white heron “watched the sea and the morning together” (1603). Her observation of the white heron caused her to keep the creature’s location a secret. Her attachment towards the scene creates a supportive thought that affects the reader’s decision of accepting Sylvia’s choice of keeping the white heron’s location a
Furthermore, they all have an outside threat. The ornithologist might shoot the heron and make it a specimen while the man is suffered from the severe cold weather. In the stories both characters have to deal with the danger from outside world. Sylvia has to climb upon the tree to see where the heron is, the man has to avoid the snow falls from the tree.
O’ Brien, Tim. The Seagull Reader: Stories. Joseph Kelly. 2nd Edition. “The Things They Carried”. New York. W.W.Norton. 2008. 521 pg. Print.
The tile of the poem “Bird” is simple and leads the reader smoothly into the body of the poem, which is contained in a single stanza of twenty lines. Laux immediately begins to describe a red-breasted bird trying to break into her home. She writes, “She tests a low branch, violet blossoms/swaying beside her” and it is interesting to note that Laux refers to the bird as being female (Laux 212). This is the first clue that the bird is a symbol for someone, or a group of people (women). The use of a bird in poetry often signifies freedom, and Laux’s use of the female bird implies female freedom and independence. She follows with an interesting image of the bird’s “beak and breast/held back, claws raking at the pan” and this conjures a mental picture of a bird who is flying not head first into a window, but almost holding herself back even as she flies forward (Laux 212). This makes the bird seem stubborn, and follows with the theme of the independent female.
Sarah Orne Jewett's "A White Heron" is a brilliant story of an inquisitive young girl named Sylvia. Jewett's narrative describes Sylvia's experiences within the mystical and inviting woods of New England. I think a central theme in "A White Heron" is the dramatization of the clash between two competing sets of values in late nineteenth-century America: industrial and rural. Sylvia is the main character of the story. We can follow her through the story to help us see many industrial and rural differences. Inevitably, I believe that we are encouraged to favor Sylvia's rural environment and values over the industrial ones.
"When she heard it there came before her imagination the figure of a man standing beside a desolate rock on the seashore. He was naked. His attitude was one of hopeless resignation as he looked toward a distant bird winging its flight away from him." (pp26-27)
Martin, Scott. Annotations to The Crow by James O’Barr . Last updated 9 July 1998. Accessed 23 April 2003. <http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Balcony/2570/crownote.htm>.
Peering through the bushes, Catullus gazed upon his beloved. She sat in her garden, holding her delicate sparrow in her lap, unaware of Catullus. “Oh to be that bird!” sighed Catullus. “To be held by those perfect hands! If only I were Clodia’s sparrow!”
Williams includes as a foreshadowing, the sound of the Canada geese flying over and Robert realizes many details of the rural life he had forgotten he experienced when he was young. When he hears the geese, “he ran to the window—remembering an old excitement” and begins to “remember and wondered at the easy memories of his youth” (1667). By putting in details and traditions of the countryside lifestyle, Williams makes sures to indulge readers in the atmosphere of a Rockwell painting but never fails to include incidents of realism. With Robert increasingly remembering his childhood lifestyle, he is beginning to reassure himself that there is meaning to his life after the death he experienced. At the house he finds a bow and arrow where he was “surprised at his won excitement when he fitted the nock” (1667). After he experienced shooting the arrow, he sets out to buy more and fix the bow where he again, remembers old memories about how he had fallen in love with the objects in the store as a
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...
Beauty is subjective, but in most cases it is measured in the awe it can evoke. Flannery O’Connor was a victim of beauty in the form of a peacock. O’Connor brings to light the magnificence and the allure that drew her to this exceptional creature in her piece, “The King of the Birds”. Looking for fulfillment in raising these birds, O’Connor is defensive and dispassionate throughout her writing. O’Connor’s attitude is the antithesis of the caring and open description of the Canadian prairies provided by Margret Laurence in “Where the World Began”. Although the works of these two women might seem drastically opposed, they are intertwined on multiple levels. On the subject of beauty, they encourage their readers to delve beneath the surface and
Annie Dillard portrays her thoughts differently in her passage, incorporating a poetic sense that is carried through out the entire passage. Dillard describes the birds she is viewing as “transparent” and that they seem to be “whirling like smoke”. Already one could identify that Dillard’s passage has more of poetic feel over a scientific feel. This poetic feeling carries through the entire passage, displaying Dillard’s total awe of these birds. She also incorporates word choices such as “unravel” and that he birds seem to be “lengthening in curves” like a “loosened skein”. Dillard’s word choice implies that he is incorporating a theme of sewing. As she describes these birds she seems to be in awe and by using a comparison of sewing she is reaching deeper inside herself to create her emotions at the time.
The poem, “Whip-poor-will” by Donald Hall is written beautifully with a sense of nature and family. Throughout this poem, Hall illustrates these natural occurrences, such as the “sandy ground”, “the last light of June”, and “a brown bird in the near—night, soaring over shed and woodshed to far dark fields”. The bird in this instance is a whippoorwill, defined as a nocturnal nightjar of Eastern North America that uses loud, repetitive calls suggestive of its name. The whippoorwill is an imaginary representation of the poets long lost grandfather.
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.
Throughout the late 19th century following the Industrial Revolution, society became focused on urban life and began to neglect the importance of rural society and nature. In “A White Heron” Sarah Orne Jewett, through Sylvia’s decision to protect the heron, contemplates the importance of nature and rural society. In particular, Jewett employs the cow grazing scene to show the importance of and solitude that Sylvia finds in rural life. When the hunter appears and Sylvia accompanies him on his journey to find the bird, his actions and speech reveal the destructiveness of urban society on nature. The scene when Sylvia climbs the tree to find the heron, initially in order to please the hunter and satisfy her new love for him, shows her realization
Another recurrent image is Brontë's treatment of Birds. We first witness Jane's fascination with them as she reads Bewick's History of British Birds as a child. She reads of "death-white realms" and "'the solitary rocks and promontories'" of sea-fowl. We quickly see how Jane ide...