An Essay on a White Heron
Zhang Jinhua
Yin Cong
American Women’s Literature
2012-11-5
A Story of Resistance
---A Tentative Study of “A White Heron”
In “A White Heron,” an alternative to a civilized world dominated by men and based on their values and interests decided is provided. Jewett has weaved several irreconcilable conflicts between the masculine world represented by the unnamed hunter and the far away village, an artificial women Utopian world Sylvia is living in. Those conflicts between two competing sets of value in later nineteenth-century can be listed as follows: material/spiritual, industrial/rural, scientific/instinctual, civilized/nature, sophisticated/innocent and masculine/feminine. Sylvia unconsciously finished her spiritual journey of choosing the latter ones over the formers. It is a strenuous journey resisting to the young hunter’s money and himself who is epitome both of the outside material world and possible heterosexual love, which is more fascinating for a girl on her way to her puberty.
A nine years old girl, Sylvia (Latin word for woods) lives with her grandmother in a farm after moving from “a crowded manufacturing town” where she had stayed for eight years. She seems to be the one with nature, without human playmates, but rather she is more comfortable when she plays with her animal companies throughout the farm. She is so happy that “she never had been alive at all before she came to live at the farm.” Furthermore, Sylvia’s natural world is an entirely female world. There is no man can be found anywhere in her grandmother’s farm. The actual reason why her grandmother chose her from “houseful of children,” is Sylvia’s “afraid of folks. Her grandmother assures her of that she won’t be troubled with them in “the old place.” The only thing in town Sylvia often thought is the wretched geranium. In my opinion, it is a symbol standing for Sylvia herself. She probably before identified herself as a wretched geranium, lonely standing in the yard too. Now Sylvia
Yin Cong
American Women’s Literature
2012-11-5
A Story of Resistance
---A Tentative Study of “A White Heron”
In “A White Heron,” an alternative to a civilized world dominated by men and based on their values and interests decided is provided. Jewett has weaved several irreconcilable conflicts between the masculine world represented by the unnamed hunter and the far away village, an artificial women Utopian world Sylvia is living in. Those conflicts between two competing sets of value in later nineteenth-century can be listed as follows: material/spiritual, industrial/rural, scientific/instinctual, civilized/nature, sophisticated/innocent and masculine/feminine. Sylvia unconsciously finished her spiritual journey of choosing the latter ones over the formers. It is a strenuous journey resisting to the young hunter’s money and himself who is epitome both of the outside material world and possible heterosexual love, which is more fascinating for a girl on her way to her puberty.
A nine years old girl, Sylvia (Latin word for woods) lives with her grandmother in a farm after moving from “a crowded manufacturing town” where she had stayed for eight years. She seems to be the one with nature, without human playmates, but rather she is more comfortable when she plays with her animal companies throughout the farm. She is so happy that “she never had been alive at all before she came to live at the farm.” Furthermore, Sylvia’s natural world is an entirely female world. There is no man can be found anywhere in her grandmother’s farm. The actual reason why her grandmother chose her from “houseful of children,” is Sylvia’s “afraid of folks. Her grandmother assures her of that she won’t be troubled with them in “the old place.” The only thing in town Sylvia often thought is the wretched geranium. In my opinion, it is a symbol standing for Sylvia herself. She probably before identified herself as a wretched geranium, lonely standing in the yard too. Now Sylvia
Cited: Works Guerin, Wilfred L., et, al. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2004. 5 Chen, Lin, et, al. comp. Selected Readings in American Short Stories. Dalian: Dalian University of Technology Press, 2009. 4