Introduction
In this short story, we were taken to see the development and growth of the protagonist Sylvia. Initially she was a city girl but transferred to the provincial lifestyle with her grandmother. The symbol that reflected to Sylvias passion for her new life with nature is the white heron. The white heron represents the choice Sylvia was going to make at the end of the story as well as the new world she was immersed to. With the arrival of a young ornithologist, Sylvia as a pubescent female was entranced by him and was torn between pleasing the young man or saving the tranquility of the world she is living in. This paper would discuss that the short storys symbol, the white heron, is not only representing the protagonists development but also her way of protecting her new home. The overall theme of the story is searching and realization, wherein Sylvia the main protagonist of the story made a choice not to tell the ornithologist the location of the white heron due to her own realization of what was happening to her world due to the ornithologists actions and that while during the search for the white heron she came to realize that this world in the forests that she has wrapped around herself like a cloak to keep the rest of the world at bay is a small one, that there are wider expanses out there to explore and that she has yet to experience them herself.
The white heron in the story was elusive, hard to find and seemingly something out of reach. In the beginning of the story we read Sylvias vivid description of the small world around her its vivid description shows how much shes familiar with the place and how she truly values it however we also learn from the story that Sylvia has a fear of people. This can be interpreted from the line Afraid of folks, old Mrs. Tilley said to herself, with a smile, after she had made the unlikely choice of Sylvia from her daughters houseful of children, and was returning to the farm. Afraid of folks, the said I guess she wont be troubled no great with em up to the old place(part I). This shows that the limited world around her is her comfort zone, sort of like a shroud of nature to keep the world at bay since she is afraid of people. This is proven by the event in the story wherein she initially meets the ornithologist for the first time and tries to avoid him at first and is afraid of him. Initially the protagonist Sylvia was after the Heron for the 10 offered by the ornithologist and during the night thought of the different treasures that this amount of money would be able to buy. During the search where in she uses the great pine tree in the story to discover the location of the heron Sylvia sees the vastness of the world around her, from the town, to the vast forest to the ships sailing in the sea. She comes to realize that the world around her is not all there is to be. This can be likened to the old story of the frog in the well wherein a frog is at the bottom of a deep well and thinks all that is around him is the world and he is its master without knowing of the vast sea beyond. The search and the finding of the white heron symbolize a new world for the character. Where she realizes that there is more to life than just the simple place where she lives and that where she is right now. As said in the beginning the elusiveness of the white heron which seems out of reach can be interpreted as the world outside of our own personal wells, always elusive and just out of reach. The reason why Sylvia didnt tell the hunter about the whereabouts of the heron is due to the fact that heron for her came to symbolize purity and change. Namely the purity of the world around her which the hunter changed for the worst when he shot down several birds and change when in the search for the heron her view of the world changed. For me the story of the white heron is about discovering what is out there, that there is something more to life than just our own little worlds. The white heron is the symbol of the elusive change that we can achieve if we just search for it. That we can step out of our own comfort zones and see a new and better world beyond. Sometimes a change of perspective is needed, even if that perspective need be from the top of a tall tree.
A White Heron story may at first delude the readers that it had taken an environmental stance through the protagonist. After all, it is a story of a young lady who grew to love her new provincial life. Through the white heron, the readers will be able to interpret this literary piece in a whole different perspective. Sylvia was not only portrayed protecting the white heron but also growing from adolescence to adulthood. We saw her developing feelings towards the young hunter of admiration turning into the first stirrings of love. We can see it on the last paragraph of part I, - But as the day waned, Sylvia still watched the young man with loving admiration. She has never seen anybody so charming and delightful the womans heart, asleep in the child, was vaguely thrilled by a dream of love. Sylvia also decided to search the white heron by herself not only to please the young man but also to feel the sense of adventure. When she finally found the white heron, she felt a sense of awe and finally saw that there was much to offer from nature. She was suddenly thrown into a decision of whether to tell the ornithologist of this discovery. Yet even with the excited queries from Mrs. Tilley and the ornithologist regarding the bird, Sylvia kept her silence. Any young child would be easily intimidated to follow an adults bidding or tempted by the reward. Sylvia, surprisingly, denied that she knew of the birds whereabouts. We can feel the protagonists feelings by the storys narration No, she must keep her silence What is it that suddenly forbids her and makes her dumb Has she been nine years growing and now, when the great world for the first time puts out a hand to her, must she thrust aside for a birds sake... she cannot tell the herons secret and give its life away. (Part II). She, unconsciously, grew into a wise woman from that event alone.
By realizing and interpreting the symbol that the author was trying to express we find ourselves relating more to the story, that there is something we can focus on. The symbol comes to be the very heart of the story itself and that whenever we think of the story what we think of first would be the symbol. It enriches the story in such a way that we realize that sometimes not everything is as cut and dry as it seems. That sometimes you have to read in between the lines to see what the true story actually is.
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