A White Heron Literary Analysis

Throughout its 239 years of independence, the United States of America has experienced peace, war, and just about everything in between. American culture has evolved significantly since the 18th century, and nothing more effectively represents its centuries of triumphs and tragedies than the literature of American authors. Specifically through short stories, these authors discuss both personal and societal concerns of their times, and simultaneously interweave themes of life, love, and happiness in their works. Three specific authors in American history – Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Theodore Dreiser ¬– act as “moral purifiers” presenting their case through their creative works that, left up to the reader, may have a positive …show more content…
Writing through the experiences of a young girl, Jewett teaches her readers the virtues of staying true to their passions, as her main character realizes a man’s love is not what she needs to be content. According to Kelley Griffith, Sylvia, the main character, “is a backwoods girl who quests for something that the man she ‘loves’ wants, and at the climax of her quest she finds something much more valuable. She sees the sea, the morning sun, and the countryside—symbolically, the whole world—all at once. Unconsciously she realizes that the white heron represents the essence of this mysterious new world, and she cannot betray it for a mere ten dollars” (Griffith 2). Sylvia’s innocence serves to provide a clear example of how love does not always provide true satisfaction. Jewett was aware of the social pressure on women to marry during the time, and concerned her literature specifically with independent and professional women, who underwent adventures all their own. Cynthia Bily expounds on this: “Most of Jewett's central characters are women, and they usually operate to some extent out of the bustle of mainstream society: they are not young women having dramatic adventures and finding husbands, but spinsters and widows and children and professional women leading quiet, sometimes lonely, lives. Their conflicts are internal, their support is mainly from other women, their arena is domestic” (Bily 3). Jewett’s focus on autonomous women was unconventional, but demonstrated the ability of women to out surpass men in society. And within the societies she constructs, Jewett shows readers that successful women still engage in private experiences, many of which hold life-altering significance. These experiences were directly inspired by her personal life, as The Encyclopedia of World Biography