In "A White Heron," what characteristics does Sylvia share with the white heron?

The short story "A White Heron" by Sarah Orne Jewett tells of a nine-year-old girl named Sylvia who lives with her grandmother in the Maine woods. She is bringing the cow home one evening when she encounters a young hunter. He promises her ten dollars, which is a large amount of money to her, if she will lead him to where he can shoot and kill a rare white heron. Early one morning, Sylvia climbs a tall pine tree and spots the heron, but in the end, she decides to protect the heron and not tell the hunter where it is.

Clues to characteristics that Sylvia has in common with the white heron can be found throughout the story. In the second paragraph, Jewett writes that according to the grandmother's observations, Sylvia loves "straying about out-of-doors" and "it seemed as if she had never been alive at all before she came to live at the farm." This indicates that Sylvia feels at home in the woods, just as the heron does. This is reinforced as Sylvia walks home at twilight with the cow and she feels "as if she were a part of the gray shadows and the moving leaves."

Later, as they sit in the doorway together after dinner, the grandmother emphasizes Sylvia's affinity with the animals in the woods. She says that "the wild creatures count her one o' themselves."

After Sylvia climbs to the top of the tall tree, she imagines that "she too could go flying away among the clouds." She has the same vantage point that the heron has as it flies. She can see for miles; she even catches a glimpse of the sea. To symbolize their closeness, the white heron appears on a nearby branch. It perches just as Sylvia does, high upon a treetop. When she is finished, she understands the heron's secret and realizes that she must protect it.

We see, then, that Sylvia shares the heron's characteristics of freedom, familiarity with the woods, and affinity with the other woodland animals.

In "A White Heron," what do Sylvia and the heron have in common?

Both Sylvia and the heron have quite a few things in common.  Both are solitary, lone creatures that are most comfortable surrounded by nature and its beauty.  The heron is a rare bird, just as Sylvia, a girl who loves the country life and living in solitude, is a rare type of person.  Most people enjoy living in the hustle and bustle of the city, surrounded with friends and constant activity.  Sylvia, however, does not, and feels at home in the pleasant environment of nature--so, she is, like the heron, rare in that regard.

Another way that Sylvia and the heron are similar is that they are mysterious and elusive to common human understanding.  The young hunter figured he could offer Sylvia money and that would be more than enough to prompt her to help him hunt down the bird.  This is a pretty logical assumption to make, as it was a lot of money, and she and her grandmother were not well-off, and for most people, it would have been enough.  Not for Sylvia though; she possess a unique and mysterious perspective, and the hunter does not understand it.  He can't grasp her inner maturity and viewpoint, and so does not succeed in finding the bird.  The heron is the same way--hard to find, hard to study, hard to understand, and not as easily accessible as other birds.

I hope that those thoughts help a bit--good luck!

What do Sylvia and the heron have in common in "A White Heron"?

Both Sylvia and the white heron are reclusive children of nature.

What a spirit of adventure, what wild ambition! What fancied triumph and delight and glory for the later morning when she could make known the secret!

It is, indeed, because she is one with nature that Sylvia cannot reveal the secret home of the heron. For, telling the young man will be a betrayal of the heron, a kindred creature so like the "lonely country child."

For Sylvia the white heron is unique and it symbolizes the freedom she has known in the country. Betrayal of this free spirit means its death; and, if Sylvia causes this death she will have guilt and no longer be free herself. Because the bird has provided Sylvia with the vision of the sea and world beyond, the girl cannot be the cause of its death.

In an essay, "A White Heron: Sylvia as Hero in Sarah Orne Jewett's 'A White Heron,'" the author quotes a work written by Joseph Campbell, which treats the hero archetype who receives a call to adventure, then the hero is invited into "an unsuspecting world" where there are forces which help him/her.

Sometimes this victory is accompanied by a mystical vision that shows the hero something of the life-creating energy of all existence.

This vision, then, takes the hero through a succession of trials into a victory in which the hero crosses into a "dimension that vanquishes all opposition." Sylvia has Just this transcendental experience and cannot, therefore, betray the heron to the mundane and banal world.

What do Sylvia and the heron have in common?

Sylvia and the heron are both elusive and mysterious creatures.  Sylvia's tendency is to keep to herself and those people she knows well -- like her grandmother and her cow; she is made very uncomfortable by the presence of the hunter at first and even views him as "the enemy."  He is certainly the enemy of the elusive heron.  The hunter's intention is to find and kill this beautiful, white bird and then stuff it to keep in his home. 

Further, both Sylvia and the heron are representative of the fragility of nature.  At one point, when Sylvia realizes that she'll have to tell the hunter her name and take him home with her, "she hung her head as if the stem of it were broken."  She's compared to a fragile flower that can be easily damaged by the hunter and the things that he wants.  One can say the same thing about the birds the young man hunts.  At the end of the story, the narrator describes the "sharp report of his gun and the sight of thrushes and sparrows dropping silent to the ground, their songs hushed and their pretty feathers stained and wet with blood."  It does not take much for the hunter to end the life of the birds he finds so lovely.  In the end, it was Sylvia's first impression of him that is correct, and it is perhaps why the heron eludes him: he is the enemy of the beauty and life in nature.

The heron represents a kind of freedom for which Sylvia longs, but in an instinctive way. She does not long for it in the way you might long for a mocha frappacino, for example. This longing is what we call inchoate. It is a deep longing which we all feel, and which for Sylvia is symbolized and activated by the heron. Its great wings, its soaring freedom and its simple "difference" from her are powerful, and stir in her powerful feelings of strength and freedom. When she climbs the pine tree, the vistas which open to her eyes and to her thinking are life changing, though she is only beginning to realize it. That too is like a vague stirring or premonition in her heart. We all want to be more than we are. To see further, to see more clearly--this is Sylvia growing up. The heron and Sylvia both just want to be as free as they can be. When she is in the tree, she is "with" the heron--high up and free.

In "A White Heron," what do Sylvia and the young ornithologist have in common?

Silvia and the young man both seem to love birds. As they walk through the woods together, the two seem to take equal pleasure in the birds they see. However, Sylvia loves birds for their living beauty, and the young man seems to want them only for their rarity and usefulness to him as trophies. This creates the fundamental conflict in the story. Only Sylvia can lead the young man to the white heron. She loves the new found company of the man and seems somewhat smitten with him. Her family could also use the money he has offered to pay for knowledge of the heron's nesting place. However, Sylvia must decide if her love of nature and the bird are worth what the young man offers. In the end, she decides not to tell the ornithologist where the bird's nest is and thus, decides not to betray nature.