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A review by miafanshaw
A White Heron by Sarah Orne Jewett
reflective
My response for AP Lang cause I spent way to much time on this assignment:
The resolution is unpredictable until the final moments when the girl’s internal conflict grows to its greatest height. She debates back and forth whether to reveal the heron until she finally resolves to stay silent. Ultimately, she makes this decision as she remembers her shared moment with the bird just that morning when they had watched the glory of the world with the rising sun together. Being so transcendental and influential to the life of a young nine year old, that moment holds a great significance in her heart; she determines she might lose its memory if the bird is killed. Therefore, she does not reveal the heron’s location so that she may prevent the man from killing it. As displayed in the beginning of the story, Sylvia has a great capacity for finding companionship with animals, and the heron becomes more important to her as a companion than the young man.
However, in the final paragraph, she almost seems to doubt this. Of course, the emptiness she feels upon the young man’s departure makes her question if the heron and other animals are truly capable of being equals in companionship to humans. The notion disillusions her to her relationship with nature; this is a similar process to what many other people have felt at this influential age in their life.
Yet, by prioritizing the heron, Jewett does ultimately assure the readers that humans are indeed equals in companions to nature. Jewett asks whether the birds are “better friends than their hunter might have been”. She admits that she, like Sylvia, may never know, for “who can tell?”. In spite of that, she urges the world to bring its “gifts and graces” to the “lonely country child” to force Sylvia to “remember” herself. I believe that Jewett is responding to the empty loneliness people feel in the world, as if they feel they do not belong in the natural world. It seems to many that nature possesses a different form of communication than people, causing them to feel isolated and “lonely” as Sylvia did. However, humans, by being natural beings, can communicate with nature and find solace or companionship in it. Jewett brilliantly transcends the separation of humans and nature in this short story by reaffirming the harmony our younger selves experienced with the world.
The resolution is unpredictable until the final moments when the girl’s internal conflict grows to its greatest height. She debates back and forth whether to reveal the heron until she finally resolves to stay silent. Ultimately, she makes this decision as she remembers her shared moment with the bird just that morning when they had watched the glory of the world with the rising sun together. Being so transcendental and influential to the life of a young nine year old, that moment holds a great significance in her heart; she determines she might lose its memory if the bird is killed. Therefore, she does not reveal the heron’s location so that she may prevent the man from killing it. As displayed in the beginning of the story, Sylvia has a great capacity for finding companionship with animals, and the heron becomes more important to her as a companion than the young man.
However, in the final paragraph, she almost seems to doubt this. Of course, the emptiness she feels upon the young man’s departure makes her question if the heron and other animals are truly capable of being equals in companionship to humans. The notion disillusions her to her relationship with nature; this is a similar process to what many other people have felt at this influential age in their life.
Yet, by prioritizing the heron, Jewett does ultimately assure the readers that humans are indeed equals in companions to nature. Jewett asks whether the birds are “better friends than their hunter might have been”. She admits that she, like Sylvia, may never know, for “who can tell?”. In spite of that, she urges the world to bring its “gifts and graces” to the “lonely country child” to force Sylvia to “remember” herself. I believe that Jewett is responding to the empty loneliness people feel in the world, as if they feel they do not belong in the natural world. It seems to many that nature possesses a different form of communication than people, causing them to feel isolated and “lonely” as Sylvia did. However, humans, by being natural beings, can communicate with nature and find solace or companionship in it. Jewett brilliantly transcends the separation of humans and nature in this short story by reaffirming the harmony our younger selves experienced with the world.