Applying Literary Criticism to a Short Story

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Robbie N. McGirt Grand Canyon University Sue Crannell ENG 356 9 December 2012 Applying Literary Criticism to a Short Story A White Heron is a short story written about Sylvia a nine year old girl. Sylvia is originally from the city but she goes to live with her grandmother in the country in New England. Sylvia discovers that she likes animals especially Mistress Molly the cow that she often has to go and find and bring back to the house. In the story Sylvia meets a young man that is looking for a bird. Sylvia had spotted the bird in the area and she struggles with telling the young man or keeping it a secret. Since Sylvia likes animals now she is not sure of what decision to make. In this particular story I would chose psychological. In literary work there are usually some secret messages in the story. You would have to read and analyze the story to figure out what the messages are. It took me several times to read the story to understand and see the secret messages. In reading my first thoughts were this is just a naïve little girl in the country that runs into a stranger. In this story we read a passage that states “Sylvia had all the time there was, and very little use to make of it” (p.687). Sylvia had no playmates so the cow was a way for her to play. When Sylvia would go out and hunt for Mistress Molly it could be viewed as a hide and seek game. In another passage we read “speak up and tell me what your name is, and whether you think I can spend the night at your house, and go out gunning early in the morning”(pp. 688-689). In this passage you could view this as a sexual dynamic. The last passage that I read “Bring your gifts and graces and tell your secrets to this lonely country girl” (p.694), made me think about in the story they discussed that the girl and grandmother were poor. Sylvia could have made them rich by telling the strangers were the

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