Dec 11, 2009

A White Heron | Introduction

When ‘‘A White Heron’’ appeared in 1886 as the title story in Sarah Orne Jewett’s collection A White Heron and Other Stories, the author was already established as one of the finest local color writers the United States had produced. This was Jewett’s eighth published book, and she had enough influence with her publisher, Houghton, Mifflin, to open the book with the story, although it had already been rejected by the Atlantic Monthly magazine as too sentimental and romantic. Jewett’s instincts, in this case, were right. The story of a young forest-dwelling girl who must choose whether or not to tell a handsome young hunter the secret of where the rare white heron has its nest was immediately recognized by critics as a treasure; it has since become the most admired and most widely anthologized of Jewett’s nearly 150 short stories. While some critics have faulted the story for its shifts in narrative point of view which they saw as lack of control on the author’s part, others have praised Jewett’s narrative shifts, which they find add an important dimension to the narrator’s role. Over the past century critics have explored themes of good versus evil, flesh versus spirit, nature versus civilization, feminine versus masculine world view, and innocence versus experience in ‘‘A White Heron.’’ Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, another well-regarded nineteenth-century New England writer, praised the story. An anonymous 1886 reviewer in the Overland Monthly called it ‘‘a tiny classic,’’ and noted that its themes ‘‘never were interpreted with more beauty and insight.’’

A White Heron Summary

‘‘A White Heron’’ begins on a June evening near the Maine coast. As the sun sets, nine-year-old Sylvia drives home a cow, her ‘‘valued companion.’’ The child has no other playmates, and enjoys these evening walks with the cow, Mistress Moolly, and the hide-and-seek games the cow plays to escape being caught. It has taken an unusually long time to find the cow this night, and Sylvia hopes her grandmother, Mrs. Tilley, will not be worried. But Mrs. Tilley knows that Sylvia never hurries these walks, because she so loves wandering in the woods. After living her first eight years in a crowded and noisy city with her parents, Sylvia has found her true home with her grandmother in the country. Although she is afraid of people, ‘‘there never was such a child for straying about out-of-doors since the world was made!’’

As the two companions approach the farm, Sylvia listens to the birds and squirrels preparing for night, cools her tired feet in the brook, and thinks about how different her life is now from when she lived in the city. Just as she remembers uneasily a city boy who used to chase and frighten her, she is startled to hear whistling not far off. This is not the pleasant and friendly whistling of a bird, but the ‘‘determined, and somewhat aggressive’’ whistling of a boy. Before she can conceal herself in the woods, she encounters a tall young man with a gun,... » Complete A White Heron Summary