White Heron Essay

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White Heron Essay: If a Tree Belittles Sometimes, certain events in one’s adolescence that are seemingly insignificant can be remembered as much larger adventures in one’s mind. In other words, children are very impressionable. Something that, to an adult, may not seem like a big deal, can have a huge and everlasting impact on a child, causing the child to remember the event in an exaggerated way. In the short story “A White Heron” by Sarah Orne Jewett, a young girl named Sylvia must climb a tall, monstrous pine tree to reach a heron’s nest, which she was told to do. In the short period of time that Sylvia is scaling the tree, the author makes it into a dramatic adventure by emphasizing the tree’s size and how it’s a challenge before she climbs it; using specific words to make the climb seem treacherous and Sylvia seem brave during her climb of it; and making it seem like climbing the tree was a huge accomplishment, a beautiful view, and worth the journey when she reaches the top. The author characterizes the tree even before Sylvia even climbs it as an enormous, monstrous thing, and an obstacle Sylvia must face. One instance of such description is when the author describes how “the stately head of [the] old pine towered above them all and made a landmark for sea and shore miles away” (5). This demonstrates the extreme height of the tree, which leads to Sylvia’s thinking of it as “monstrous”, and as an obstacle. In addition, this quote contributes to the feeling of climbing of the pine being a dramatic adventure, because it is so large. Also, when Jewett states that the tree was “the last of its generation” (2) and that the “woodchoppers who had [cut down] its mates were dead and gone long ago” (3), she implies that the woodchoppers were not able to cut down this pine because it was so strong. This revelation makes the tree seem
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