The White Heron Literary Analysis

The White Heron depicts a story of a little girl who leads a life of respect and love of nature rather than that of fortune. Early on in the story, she meets a boy who is a self-proclaimed ornithologist, a scientist that studies birds. He is willing to pay ten dollars to whomever can show him the White Heron he had once seen. It is now up to Sylvia, the young girl, to make a decision either in favor of the ornithologist or the white heron. Ultimately, she will be making a decision to acquiesce to male dominance or not. The pine tree in which Sylvia climbs in order to see the white heron up close can be represented as a symbol of life. "Now she thought of the tree with a new excitement, for why, if one climbed it at break of day, could not one see all the world, and easily
Mallard receiving the troubling news of her husbands' sudden death from a railroad accident. The use of symbolism is made through connections with nature. "She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring of life" (Chopin). Mrs. Mallard begins to experience a sensation of a new being. What is expected of her reaction is that of deep sorrow and regret, but in direct contrast, she is reborn. "There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully…she felt it creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air" (Chopin). What was finally coming to her was her deserved freedom. She was no longer Mrs. Mallard, but her own individual. She would finally be able to "live for herself…spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own" (Chopin). Unfortunately, the news of her husband's accident was in itself an accident. In the end of the story, her husband walks through the front door, and in the process Mrs. Mallard "had died of heart disease- of joy that kills"