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

Plot Summary

Nine-year-old Sylvia has come from the city to live in the New England woods with her grandmother, Mrs. Tilley. As the story

begins, Sylvia has been living with her grandmother for nearly a year, learning to adapt to country ways. She helps the old

woman by taking over some of the more physical chores, such as finding Mistress Mooly, the cow, each evening in the

fields where she grazes and bringing her home. By means of this and other tasks, along with her explorations in the forest,

Sylvia has become a country girl who dearly loves her new home. She has taken to it easily and immerses herself in her

new life completely, as evidenced by the description of her journey home each evening with the cow: “..but their feet were

familiar with the path, and it was no matter whether their eyes could see it or not.” One evening she is approached by a

hunter, who is in the area looking for birds to shoot and preserve for his collection. This young man is searching in

particular for the rare white heron and he is sure that it makes its nest in the vicinity. He accompanies Sylvia on her way

with hopes of spending the night at her grandmother’s house. Once he has received this invitation, he makes himself at

home, and after they eat, he says that he will give a sum of money to anyone who can lead him to the white heron. The

next day Sylvia accompanies the hunter into the forest as he searches for the bird’s nest, but he does not find it. Early the

following morning, the girl decides to go out and look for the bird by herself so that she can be sure of showing the hunter

its exact location when he awakes. She decides to climb the tallest tree in the forest so that she can see the entire

countryside, and she finds the heron, just as she had thought she would. But Sylvia is so affected by her tree-top

observation of the heron and other wildlife that she cannot bring herself to disclose the heron's location to the hunter after

all, despite his entreaties. Sylvia knows that she would be awarded much-needed money for directing him to the heron, but

she decides that she can not play any part in bringing about the bird's death. The hunter eventually departs without his
prize. As Sylvia grows older she is haunted by the idea of what she gave up that day, and in the last paragraph of the story,

Jewett, as omniscient observer, urges nature to reward her for her selflessness by offering her its secret.

[edit]Major themes

Sylvia is a lonely little girl living with her grandmother on a farm in the woods of New England. This story shows that Sylvia,

as well as the white heron, are lonely and free beings. Sylvia lived in a manufacturing town and now is in the rural

countryside, thus feeling a wonderful new freedom. “…as for Sylvia herself, it seemed as if she never had been alive at all

before she came to live on the farm.” Sylvia has this bond with this heron, and thus she does not disclose where its nest is

to the hunter. Sylvia’s passion was the country life and the animals that roamed free. The white heron was a symbol of

freedom, something that she did not have until she moved in with her grandmother in New England. By climbing the tree to

see the bird, Sylvia wanted to see what the bird saw and try to understand the bird's life.

There is also the idea of a young girl, living with her grandmother, and a female cow. A man enters into their life. Since this

young girl is close to puberty, she begins to have new kinds of feelings toward this young hunter. She wants to please him

by finding and showing him where the white heron lives. She desperately wants to please him – to have a feeling of self-

worth. However, when she actually sees the bird, she is so overwhelmed by its beauty that she decides that she cannot

condemn it.

[edit]Literary significance & criticism

There is a connection between Sylvia, her grandmother, and the cow. All three are female and living a gentle, comfortable

but yet poor life. Along comes the male hunter from the city to threaten their daily easy-going life style. This could possibly

change their lives and upset the tranquility of nature.

Sylvia begins to understand what it means to have maturity and to overcome her selfishness as a child. Her innocence in

putting the heron first before taking money shows how, in a short time, Sylvia has grown. However, she continues with an

innocent goal of placing more value on the wonderful bird than on money. The Power of nature proved to be much greater

for her. Many people would have given away the location of the bird and taken the money and run. Also her relationship

with nature was much stronger than any human connections she had up to this point in her life, and she knows she

receives more satisfaction from nature than from the money she could have received from the hunter.

White plays a big part in this story also, as a symbol of purity or virginity. The “white” heron, the cow’s “white” milk, and

Sylvia’s pale “white” skin. Plus, Sylvia came from a manufacturing town to a wonderful natural setting – will she protect the

“white bird from the intruder hunter?