femininity against masculinity in "A White Heron"
Uploaded by mooon on May 06, 2008
Since its first appearance in the 1886 collection A White Heron and Other Stories, the short story A White Heron has become the most favorite and often anthologized of Sarah Orne Jewett. Like most of this regionalist writer’s works, A White Heron was inspired by the people and landscapes in rural New England, where, as a little girl, she often accompanied her doctor father on his visiting patients. The story is about a nine-year-old girl who falls in love with a bird hunter but does not tell him the white heron’s place because her love of nature is much greater. In this story, the author presents a conflict between femininity and masculinity by juxtaposing Sylvia, who has a peaceful life in country, to a hunter from town, which implies her discontent with the modernization’s threat to the nature.
Different from female and male which can describe animals, femininity and masculinity are personal and human. That is femininity refers to qualities and behaviors associated with women and girls and masculinity is manly character, it specifically describes men. Femininity has traditionally included features such as gentleness, patience and kindness. On the contrary, men’s chief qualities are strength, courage and violence.
Clearly images for two definitions above in A White Heron are Sylvia and the hunter. The hunter is friendly and easy-going while Sylvia is “afraid of folks”. Sylvia is “a little maid who had tried to grow for eight years in a crowded manufacturing town”, but she is innocent and purity. “The little woods-girl is horror-stricken to hear a clear whistle not very far away.” “Sylvia was more alarmed than before” when the hunter appears and talks to her. She easily agrees to help the hunter with providing food and a place to sleep although she initially stayed alert with the hunter. The next day, “Sylvia kept him company”, even she falls in love with the hunter who is totally a stranger to her. “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.” As the symbol of masculinity, the hunter is an aggressor although he is described to be kind, handsome, friendly and sympathetic. When first met Sylvia in the woods, he “called out in a very cheerful and persuasive tone” and spoke to her in a courteous...