Any type of literary work can contain secret messages throughout the story, and it’s up to the reader to analyze and figure these hidden messages out. Some stories contain themes that are obvious, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have other underlying themes. If the reader reads a literary piece more than once, then they’re apt to pick up much more than when they read it first. In Sarah Ornes Jewetts’, A White Heron, it sounds like a simple story at first, but once it’s analyzed and picked apart, there are many more aspects to the story that are revealed. This story is about an innocent, naïve girl named Sylvia who matures throughout the story and realizes the importance of keeping the secret of the white heron.

When the reader first starts to read A White Heron, it sounds like a simple story about a young, curious girl living with her grandmother on a farm, and a bird hunter who is looking for a heron that the young girl has seen before. This hunter is willing to pay anyone who shows him where the heron is located ten dollars, because the Heron is a very valuable bird that usually isn’t found in that climate. The little girl locates the nest of the herr

Most little girls would not think twice when it came to money. Many children are selfish and would not think about what would happen to a bird when it came to money. After the hunter introduced the idea of giving ten dollars to Sylvia’s family in exchange for the heron’s location, Sylvia’s first reaction was selfish. “No amount of thought, that night, could decide how many wished-for treasures the ten dollars, so lightly spoken of, would buy,” (Jewett, 187). The more she thought about the innocent beautiful heron, she decided that it was immoral to kill an innocent creature, which is an example of how she matured throughout the story.

Throughout Jewett’s A White Heron, young Sylvia proved to be much more intelligent and mature than the average nine year old girl. In the beginning of the story, she had a vivid imagination and was oblivious to the world that surrounded her. By the end of the story Sylvia is aware of the opportunities the world can offer her, and how big the world actually is. Sylvia also started to construct morals which she will follow for the rest of her life. For example, she decided against giving up the heron’s life for money. Sylvia realizes that pure life is more important than money. The short story, A White Heron stresses the importance of growing up, and not giving into temptation, and it does a great job getting this point across by showing it through Sylvia’s maturity throughout the story.

ing, but decides not to tell the hunter. After that scene the story ends.

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