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What Is The Nature Of A White Heron

Decent Essays

Although A White Heron is such a short story it says so much about America and some of the ideals that were held at the same time this was written/set, it embodies the purity and innocence of a new America. The story is also a microcosm for nature and the drive for expansion; it only shows a sliver of what is happening in the world but it still embodies those qualities. It encompasses not only the beauty and hope that Sylvia discovers while searching for the white heron, but also the strength and determination that she gains through saving the herons from the hunter. America is a beautiful and hopeful nation, but it’s also strong and determined to protect what is right and good. Sylvia at her core is the epitome of America itself; young, adventurous, and full of spirit.
The tree seemed to lengthen itself out as she went up, and to reach farther and farther upward. It was like a great main-mast to the voyaging earth; it must truly have been amazed that morning through all its ponderous frame as it felt this determined spark of human spirit winding its way from higher branch to branch. The first line talks about a tree stretching itself out, growing. Which is what America was doing. Like Sylvia and the tree, the country was growing, becoming its own ‘being’ by expanding westward and developing the Frontier. Next is the voyaging Earth. A voyage typically means a long journey, a quest to find something new, like the West. Like how Sylvia takes a journey within

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