Male influence and emancipation in Sarah Orne Jewett's "A White Heron"

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 2,3, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (Fachbereich¿ Amerikanistik), language: English, abstract: Sarah Orne Jewett¿s short story ¿A White Heron¿ from 1886 is about a young girl¿s reaction towards a man who enters her life and who wants to persuade her to telling him where a rare bird is hiding. Although Sylvia falls in love with the bird hunter in the beginning and wants to impress him, she realizes the importance of protecting the environment around her from his influence. She does not give the secret of the bird away for the sake of love.

Jewett shows in this story that Sylviäs world is disturbed by the appearance of the hunter. She lived happily with her grandmother in an exclusive paradise without men before. With the intrusion of the hunter in her familiar surroundings, everything changes. He is a threat to her peaceful existence and influences her future life and behaviour. This essay will show how Sylviäs attitude towards the hunter changes and how Jewett explores the sexual conflict between the two sexes in this story.