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The White Heron Character Analysis

Decent Essays

The short story, “The White Heron”, written by Sarah Jewett, gave me a moral that many people need to remember for their entire lives. The moral that I personally received from the story was that life isn’t just about money. It’s so much more than just what life can buy. The main character, a young girl, Sylvia, taught us this lesson by sacrificing plenty of money, enough to support her and her grandmother, to instead assist a creature of the world. Personally, I liked this story because it sounds like something I might do. I would definitely give up any reward somebody offered to save a creature that deserved its life. I don’t need the money badly enough to allow another creature be killed for me to receive what I really wouldn’t deserve. …show more content…

Sylvia is a young girl that is very lonely, with few friends to keep her company. She is proud to say that her best friend is her lone cow. Another character is her grandmother, who is her guardian, since her parents are both deceased. Her grandmother is very hospitable and friendly towards travelers. Considering we are never informed as to if there are neighbors nearby, we can assume that the grandmother may possibly be the first person to be seen by the travelers for a while. The final character is the hunter. He’s searching for one particular bird, the white heron. Eventually, Sylvia lies to him to save the heron’s life. This causes him to go on a rampage of anger and start shooting at random birds he finds in the woods. The setting makes this make a bit more sense for a lonely girl living in the country with no friends. In present day, she would probably have Internet or something to entertain herself. Since the setting is in the early 1900’s, you can assume she has almost nothing to do, except read books over and over again. Which, personally, doesn’t sound like such a bad …show more content…

One of my favorite quotes is when she is informing us about the swaying trees that Sylvia is climbing. “The tree seemed to lengthen itself out as she went up, and to reach farther and farther upward.” Another time, the author is describing Sylvia and how lonely she is and says, “…as if she had never been alive before coming to the farm…” Also, when she described the hunter. “She didn’t dare look too boldly at the tall young man, who carried a gun over his shoulder…” Some of the dialogue is interesting as well. Such as when Sylvia is calling for the cow, she says: “Co’

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