Sarah Orne Jewett Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Karen K. Moreno

Critical Essay by Karen K. Moreno

SOURCE: “‘A White Heron’: Sylvia's Lonely Journey,” Connecticut Review, Vol. 13, No. 1, Spring, 1991, pp. 81–85.

In the article below, Moreno explicates “A White Heron” as a feminist quest myth in which Sylvia's journey has a psychological, physical, and spiritual meaning that can be interpreted using Jungian terms.

In her short story “A White Heron,” Sarah Orne Jewett presents the quest myth in feminist terms. Since Sylvia, the protagonist, lives with her grandmother in the country, her bond with nature and the maternal is continually being formed and strengthened. Until the boy stranger, an ornithologist, enters the woods near her grandmother's farm, Sylvia's life is virtually devoid of male contact. (One previous encounter she had with a boy, “the great red-faced boy” of the city, was frightening to her.) But the young Sylvia is lured by the prospect of love and trusts the boy stranger. In an attempt to...
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