A White Heron: Short Story Essay Example

and nature and how they are interdependent on each other.There are also different masculine and feminine values in the story. One difference is in the value how a person uses nature. Sylvia loves nature, knows everything about the land around her home, and is trusted by the animals, “Squer’ls she’ll tame to come an’ feed right out o’ her hands, and all sorts of birds. ” The boy doesn’t respect nature, mainly birds, but instead wants to possess them, “Oh, no, they’re stuffed and preserved, dozens and dozens of them…” The boy has turned birds into objects that he is able to possess instead of respect and learn to love like Sylvia has.

Love is also shown as having a difference between the masculine and feminine side. Love for the boy, is possession of the birds “I am making a collection of birds myself. I have been at it ever since I was a boy. ” For Sylvia, love is a true love, for the boy and for nature, “Sylvia still watched the young man with loving admiration. She had never seen anybody so charming and delightful; the woman’s heart, asleep in the child, was vaguely thrilled by a dream of love. but decides she loves nature, her world, more and when asked if she knew where the heron was, “No, she must keep silence! What is it that suddenly forbids her and makes her dumb…the murmur of the pine’s green branches is in her ears, she remembers how the white heron came flying through the golden air and how they watched the sea and the morning together, and Sylvia cannot speak; she cannot tell the

heron’s secret and give its life away.

” Sylvia also “could not understand why he killed the birds he seemed to like so much. ”