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Transversal Communication In A White Heron's A White Heron

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Unlike the hunter who concerns nonhuman or other humans merely for his own benefit, Sylvia tries to understand other species. When the young man is ignorant of how the family feels and keeps on asking Sylvia about the heron as if she is only a tool, Sylvia is watching a toad and guessing that the hop-toad may want to reach its hole. In contrast to the sportsman’s eagerness in extending his “collection of birds” (p. 200), Sylvia feels for the little creature, just as she enters into the thoughts of the birds in the boughs, wondering if they are “saying goodnight…in sleepy twitters” (p. 198). Whereas the male violently takes the singing creature down from the bough, Sylvia questions his intention for killing the birds he claims to like. For …show more content…

Sylvia manages to attain transversal communication with other life forms including her cow, the white heron and the old tree. All these friends help Sylvia to develop her identity through her bond with her natural landscape. In return, she must do something for the heron. She ought not to “give its life away” and must allow it to continue to live (p 203). After her internal conflict between the rapport with nature and the awakening interest in the opposite sex, Sylvia secures her purity and strength by refusing to surrender to the hunter and remaining in nature. Indeed, the reader can hardly not appreciate the “spirit of adventure” and rejoice at the “fancied triumph” for Sylvia and the ecosystem (p. 201).
References
Bernhard, A. (2012). Topographies real and imagined in Sarah Orne Jewett's “A White Heron”. Spatial Practices, 14, 217-231.
Brenzo, R. (1978). Free heron or dead sparrow: Sylvia's choice in Sarah Orne Jewett's "A White Heron". Colby Quarterly, 14(1), 36-41.
Griffith, K., Jr. (1985). Sylvia as hero in Sarah Orne Jewett's “A White Heron”. Colby Library Quarterly, 21(1), 22-27.
Haroun [Def. 1]. (n.d.). In Almaany dictionary. Damascus Syria: Almaany.
Held, G. (1982). Heart to heart with nature: Ways of looking at "A White Heron". Colby Quarterly, 18(1), 55-65.
Jewett, S. O. (1980). A white heron. In G. L. McMichael (Ed.), Anthology of American literature: Realism to the present (pp. 197-203). New York, NY:

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