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From Oak to Pine: Sylvia’s
Transformation in “A White Heron”
By Cecelia Lefgren
Sarah Orne Jewett’s “A White Heron” is well known among literary scholars; in fact, it is
one of her most anthologized works. The story is of Sylvia, a timid little “woods-girl,” who is
tempted by a young ornithologist to tell him the location of a white heron that he saw nearby
(196). But in the end, she does not tell. She keeps the secret to herself. In doing this, Sylvia has
essentially kept herself from moving from one world, the world of her woods and childish
naïveté, to another, the world of the hunter’s apparent maturity. This brings to the surface the
greatest question associated with this story: Why? Why, after all Sylvia goes through, does she
change her mind and not give in to the hunter? There have been many who claim that she
chooses to keep silent as a rejection of men or a fear of sexuality, but if the story is looked at as a
heroic journey, we can see that Sylvia keeps silent to protect and guard those things around her
that she deems precious. Like the ancient pine she climbs, Sylvia becomes a watcher and a
guardian over the woods.
Looking through a feminist lens, many people who have written about “A White Heron”
have ascribed to Sylvia certain traits that do not seem to actually be her own, but rather, her
author’s. Sarah Orne Jewett was homosexual, according to several biographers, including Paula
Blanchard, who said, “Jewett's deepest affections were always centered on women,” and
Josephine Donovan: “Jewett's emotional orientation was lesbian” (qtd. in Church, par. 5). This
biographical information is then taken and attached to Sylvia; her rejection of this young man is
seen as the rejection of all men. These critics see this as the reason for her change of mind, but it
is not so. There is no real textual evidence for this idea. She turns away one young man, yes, but
that doesn’t mean she would turn away all of them. To say such a thing is little more than
assumption.
Many who have written about “A White Heron” from the feminist perspective also put
too much emphasis on “the great red-faced boy” who chased Sylvia when she lived in town,
comparing or contrasting him to the hunter who comes into her woods (196). Richard Brenzo
even goes so far as to say the boy is “an obvious symbol of the fear of rape” (37). I find this
rather ridiculous; young boys chase little girls all the time. Sylvia is shy, and this boy who
chased her certainly didn’t help that, but to say that he symbolizes a sexual fear seems a stretch
to me. Instead, as Elizabeth Ammons said, he is a “perfect symbol” of the life Sylvia left behind
in the manufacturing town, a great, noisy, and somewhat fearful life (par. 5).
While the feminist perspective leads to a skewed interpretation of the story, looking at “A
White Heron” through the lens of the heroic cycle—also known as the hero’s journey—leads to a
clearer view. There are many steps in this heroic journey, but in summary, the cycle begins with
the Hero at home, or in an otherwise comfortable position. Something happens to change things,
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and the Hero is sent on a journey. On their travel, the Hero meets a Wise Figure who gives them
a gift of some kind. After enduring a trial, the Hero returns to face the Dragon (the antagonist). If
they endured their trial, they use the gift the Wise Figure gave them to defeat the Dragon and
become a king, returning home or to the place of happiness. If they did not endure the trial,
however, they fail.
Within the heroic cycle, the Hero begins as someone of a low status, often from a
secluded place where they can grow up innocently. The story begins with Sylvia living in near
solitude on her grandmother’s farm. Though we know she previously lived in “a crowded
manufacturing town,” Sylvia’s true realm is nature. Her grandmother asserts “There was never
such a child for straying about out-of-doors since the world was made!” And to the girl herself, it
seemed “as if she had never been alive before she came to live at the farm” (196). Nature was the
perfect place for Sylvia to grow up, in the context of her being a hero. She loves the woods as
much as any creature or tree in it. It is quiet and innocent, her true home.
Every hero has a flaw that must either be embraced or overcome. Sylvia begins as a very
timid child. In his article “Free Heron or Dead Sparrow: Sylvia’s choice in Sarah Orne Jewett’s
‘A White Heron,’” Richard Brenzo puts it this way, “Several images underscore the fact that she
[Sylvia] is a shy, intensely private person. She is associated with her grandmother’s cow, who
loves to hide in the woods, with a hop-toad who tries to hide under the porch, and above all, with
the white heron who dwells in a hidden nest in a remote swamp” (36). Her association with these
animals makes it all the more obvious that she would prefer to hide than face people. This
shyness, for most heroes, would be a hindrance, but for Sylvia, it actually helps to defeat the
Dragon in the end.
If the home in “A White Heron” is Sylvia’s happy situation with her grandmother and her
life in the woods around them, the occurrence that changes her situation is, of course, the arrival
of the hunter. She is “horror stricken” and immediately labels him “the enemy,” though she
knows nothing about him, other than that he is male and carries a gun. She steps off the road,
leaving her cow to “whatever sad fate may await her” (197). The arrival throws her life and
being off-balance. For the rest of the evening, she is nearly silent, speaking only when she must.
She doesn’t even realize that the “hop-toad” she is watching while on the porch is looking to get
to its home under the step (199).
However, his arrival is not enough to spur the Hero on her journey. Not even the ten
dollars offered to find the white heron is enough. There must be another reason for Sylvia to go.
The next day, the ornithologist “hovered about the woods,” instead of leaving. Sylvia goes with
him, “having lost her first fear of the friendly lad.” He gives her gifts: knowledge about birds and
a little jack-knife. As they spend the day together, Sylvia’s feelings develop into attachment
(199). In his article “Heart to Heart with Nature: Ways of Looking at ‘A White Heron,’” George
Held reminds us,
If this romantic response seems a strange turn for a story about a nine-year-old to
take, it nevertheless has a certain psychological validity…many a nine-year-old
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girl feels attracted to or develops a crush on an older boy or a man, especially one
who might drop unique from the sky like our ornithologist ex machina. (61-62)
This attachment is what pushes Sylvia over the edge. This is what really starts her on her
journey. Though she loves the woods and the enigmatic white heron, the pull from the sportsman
is greater, and early the next morning, she sets out.
But before she embarks, we realize that there is “exploitation in the relationship,” as Held
says. He points out that “in exchange for supper and lodging, the guest provides merely the
entertainment of a stranger to the isolated and his charm, while all the time plotting to use his
hosts in his quest to collect the white heron” (59). Readers can feel this. They can sense that this
young ornithologist is not a helper, but the Dragon in disguise. He has not sent her on a mission
for something good, but on a journey that, if completed, will destroy something beautiful and
precious. It will separate Sylvia from her forest, something that is now intrinsically part of her.
But in her mind, the separation must occur (Brenzo 38).
Sylvia sets out early the next morning towards “a great pine-tree…the last of its
generation,” her childish heart set on finding the white heron and telling the hunter where he is
(199). But before she can climb the pine—even its lowest branches much too high for her to
reach—she must first mount the oak that grows alongside. According to Trees of North America,
a field guide by C. Frank Brockman, a former Professor of Forestry at the University of
Washington, the White Oak and the Eastern White Pine—which is most likely the type of pine in
the story—get to be about the same height when full grown: the oak grows 80-100 feet tall, and
the pine can be 75-100 feet (22, 120). This indicates, then, a significant difference in maturity of
these two trees. The oak is younger, immature. It has not come to a full realization of what it can
be. Sylvia has had experiences with the oak; Jewett tells us that “[s]he had often climbed there.”
In fact, she has done it so often that she didn’t even need to see to climb it, but rather, “felt her
way easily” (200). Speaking symbolically, Sylvia is this young oak. She is fairly strong and
capable of sustaining life—the tree is full of birds and squirrels—but she has not yet grasped her
true capacity.
In story, every character, every hero, reaches a point where he or she figuratively gets to
the “top” of themselves. They have done all that they previously believed they could do, and
what must come next seems almost impossible. This is the beginning of their journey, the
threshold. Sylvia has never climbed the pine before, though she has “often laid her hand on the
great rough trunk and looked up wistfully at those dark boughs.” The thought of climbing it fills
her with a “spirit of adventure” and “wild ambition” (199). She will surpass what she has done
before, climb above herself—the oak—and mount into something new.
It is in this great pine that Sylvia’s trial occurs. She makes the “dangerous pass from one
tree to the other,” crossing the archetypal threshold and beginning “the great enterprise” of
climbing the pine (200). As she climbs, she is one with this tree in a way even greater than she
has been one with the forest in the past. It is difficult at first, “harder than she thought.” The tree
seemed against her—or at the least, indifferent. Twigs “caught and held her…like angry talons”
(200). The trial is the hardest part of a hero’s quest. It is the determining point. If she were to fail
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here, she would fail her entire quest: She would not find the heron, nor would she gain the
insight necessary to defeat the Dragon (the hunter). Her quest would be a failure in two ways.
Sylvia, however, does not fail her trial. She keeps climbing, and as she gets higher, “the least
twigs held themselves [steady] to advantage this light, weak creature on her way,” and the tree,
the “main-mast of the voyaging earth,” loves her and takes care of her, “frown[ing] away the
winds” that often blew through its branches (200).
This great pine, that cares for and protects her, is the Wise Figure of this story. It gives
her a gift, the ability to defeat the hunter, which comes from the transcendental experience with
the heron in the early morning. She is able to see for miles around. She can even see the ocean,
something she had only dreamed of viewing. These are all things that the pine has experienced
before, and it is passing them on to the child that was brave enough to climb it. Sylvia has
“transcended her former viewpoint,” being literally and figuratively above where she had always
been (Atkinson, par. 6). This is the result of passing successfully through her trial.
When Sylvia eventually descends, she is confronted by two antagonists: her grandmother,
a False Wise Figure, and the hunter, the Dragon in disguise. A False Wise Figure imitates the
experience and knowledge of a true Wise Figure, but instead of giving a boon, they attempt to
remove something from the Hero or, by giving false advice, keep them from completing their
journey. They cannot see the way a true Wise Figure does. Sylvia’s grandmother did not
“comprehend the gravity of the situation” when the hunter arrived. In fact, she thought at first
that he was “one of the farmer-lads of the region” (197). And after Sylvia’s trial, the
grandmother “fretfully rebukes her” for not revealing the location of the heron (201). As a False
Wise Figure, she creates another obstacle for Sylvia to surmount. In order to succeed, Sylvia
must not only ignore the temptations and coercions of the hunter, but she must also defy her
grandmother, who was once a true Wise Figure in her life.
Sylvia does not give in. In his article “The Necessary Extravagance of Sarah Orne Jewett:
Voices of Authority in ‘A White Heron,’” Michael Atkinson says that this is not a story “of
innocence lost, but of innocence preserved” (par. 2). Here, at the point where a traditional quest
would require her to reveal the gift that she gained during her trial, she must keep it a secret. This
is not a traditional quest because the Dragon is the one who sent her out. What would normally
be a triumph would be a failure; she would not defeat the Dragon if she revealed her gift. But
because she succeeded during her trial, she has the means to defeat him. At the moment of
confrontation, Sylvia remembers “the murmur of the pine’s green branches,” and “how the white
heron came flying through the golden air and how they watched the sea and the morning
together” (201-202). What the hunter offers cannot compare to that experience. He is not worth
as much as the bird is to her. She treasures the living things around her, and cannot give them up.
Kelly Griffith, in her paper “Sylvia as Hero in Sarah Orne Jewett's ‘A White Heron,’”
provides puts this in another way:
Sylvia…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…The hero, someone has said, does what normal people are not brave
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enough or strong enough to do. Most of us would have taken the ten dollars, if
only to retain the warm approval and appreciation of those we love. But Sylvia
does not, and she pays the penalty. This is her heroism. (Par. 13)
Sylvia’s love for the woods eclipses her childish love for the hunter. The great pine’s gift of
insight enabled her to defeat the Dragon through her silence. She turned down the temptation and
in doing so, protected the things she loves.
There is one part of the heroic cycle that “A White Heron” deviates from; instead of
becoming a king, Sylvia becomes a new Wise Figure. The pine tree, the first Wise Figure,
watched over and protected her. Jewett told us that it “must have loved its new dependent” (200).
Sylvia loved the heron and the woods. The pine is an old tree; it is experienced. It has seen many
more things than the smaller trees around it, and due to its height, continues to see. Sylvia has
gained experience; she has seen the world from that “giddy height” (201). She now protects the
smaller things around her, instead of stepping “discreetly aside into the bushes” when danger
comes along (196). She has voluntarily become a guardian for the things around her that cannot
protect themselves. Sylvia has changed from an immature oak into a great pine.
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Works Cited
Ammons, Elizabeth. "The Shape of Violence in Jewett's 'A White Heron'." Colby Library
Quarterly 22.1 (Mar. 1986): 6-16. Ed. Justin Karr. Vol. 44. Detroit: Gale Group,
2001. Literature Resource Center. Web. 13 July 2012.
Atkinson, Michael. “The Necessary Extravagance of Sarah Orne Jewett: Voices of Authority in
‘A White Heron.’” Studies in Short Fiction 19.1 (Winter 1982): 71-74. Vol. 44. Detroit:
Gale Group, 2001. Literature Resource Center. Web. 25 June 2012.
Brenzo, Richard. “Free Heron or Dead Sparrow: Sylvia’s Choice in Sarah Orne Jewett’s ‘A
White Heron.” Colby Library Quarterly 14:1 (1978:Mar.): 36-41. Waterville, Maine:
Colby College Library. Proquest. Web. 25 June 2012.
Brockman, C. Frank. Trees of North America. Ed. Herbert S. Zim. New York: Golden Press,
1968. Print.
Church, Joseph. “Romantic Flight in Jewett's ‘White Heron.’” Studies in American Fiction 30.1
(Spring 2002): 21-44. Vol. 110. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web.
25 June 2012.
Griffith, Kelley, Jr. “Sylvia as Hero in Sarah Orne Jewett's ‘A White Heron.’” Colby Library
Quarterly 21.1 (Mar. 1985): 22-27. Detroit: Gale, 2012. Literature Resource Center.
Web. 25 June 2012.
Held, George. “Heart to Heart with Nature: Ways of Looking at ‘A White Heron.’” Colby
Library Quarterly 18:1 (1982:Mar.): 55-65. Waterville, Maine: Colby College Library.
Proquest. Web. 25 June 2012.
Jewett, Sarah Orne. “A White Heron.” The Bedford Anthology of American Literature. Eds.
Susan Belasco and Linck Johnson. Vol. 2. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008. 195-202.
Print.