“A WHITE HERON”
SARAH ORNE JEWETT
Background
and Style
BACKGROUND
• Civil War ends 1865
• Reconstruction
• Immigration and Expansion
Realism
Regionalism
Naturalism
• Regionalism abounds
• “local color”
• offshoot of Realism (ordinary people, ordinary situations)
• writers focus on specific geographical areas
• presentation of characters, dialect, customs, topography, and other
features specific to a certain region
• often nostalgia and sentimentality in the writing (naturally, author
from that area)
• contributed to:
• the reunification of the country after the Civil War and
• to the building of national identity
• short story as a literary form is popularized
SARAH ORNE JEWETT
1849-1909
• born in South Berwick, Maine
• daughter of a country doctor
(Obstetrician)
• poor health as a child
• accompanied father on trips to visit
patients in rural southwestern coastal
Maine
Inspiration to
Chronicle
New England Life



Her most famous work: The Country of the Pointed
Firs (1896), a collected of interconnected sketches
about coastal Maine
From 1881 to her death in 1909, Jewett had close
domestic relationship with Annie Adams Fields,
widow of editor James T. Fields: they had a “Boston
marriage”
Relationships between mothers/daughters and
among women figure prominently in her fiction. After
the Civil War, which killed many men, American
women faced new demands and opportunities to
form relationships and communities
CHRONICLES OF NEW ENGLAND LIFE
Works include but are not limited to…
Deephaven
A Country Doctor
A White Heron and Other Stories
A Native of Wimbly
The Life of Nancy
The County of the Pointed Firs*
“They melt into the land and
the life of the land until they
are not stories at all, but life
itself.”
-Willa Cather
STANDARDS
L.F.1.1.3 Analyze, interpret, and evaluate how
authors use techniques and elements of
fiction to effectively communicate an idea or
concept.
L.F.2.5.1 Identify, explain, interpret, describe,
and/or analyze the effects of personification,
simile, metaphor, hyperbole, satire,
foreshadowing, flashback, imagery, allegory,
symbolism, dialect, allusion, and irony in a
text.
L.F.2.3.5 Explain, interpret, compare, describe,
analyze, and/or evaluate tone, style, and/or
mood in a variety of fiction:
•• the relationship between the tone, style,
and/or mood and other components of
a text
•• how voice and choice of speaker
(narrator) affect the mood, tone, and/or
meaning of a text
•• how diction, syntax, figurative language,
sentence variety, etc., determine the
author’s style
L.F.2.4.1 Interpret and analyze works from a
variety of genres for literary, historical, and/or
cultural significance.
STYLISTIC COMPONENTS
• Imagery
Vivid words or phrases used to create
images that appeal to one of the five
senses
• Regional Dialect
the accurate portrayal of how a person
from a particular region actually speaks,
evident in purposeful misspellings, grammatical
errors, colloquial phrases, inventive
punctuation and loose sentence structure
• Symbolism
when an object represents an idea
STYLISTIC COMPONENTS
1. Imagery:
Vivid words or phrases used to create images
that appeal to one of the five senses
Example:
The cow stopped long at the brook to drink, as if the
pasture were not half a swamp, and Sylvia stood still
and waited, letting her bare feet cool themselves in
the shoal water, while the great twilight moths struck
softly against her.
1. Underline the imagery in the ex.
2. This ex. of imagery appeals to the sense of _________.
3. The purpose of using this example of imagery is …
IMAGERY CONT’D
Task:
Find two effective visual images and two images that
appeal to other senses. List your findings in a chart like
the one below, addressing all areas of concern.
Imagery Example
(underline the specific diction-
Location
Sense
Purpose
[word choice])
“Sylvia could see the white sails of ships
out at sea, and the clouds that were
purple and rose colored and yellow at
first began to fade away.”
Last
paragraph
of page 5
sight
sight
tough
hearing
Jewett describes the visual beauty of
the sunrise. The multi-colored sky is
breathtaking against the stark sails of
the ships. Anyone who has ever seen a
sunrise would be readily able to recall
the awesomeness of a scene such as
this
STYLISTIC COMPONENTS
CONT’D
2. Regional Dialect -the accurate portrayal of how a person from a
particular region actually speaks, evident in purposeful misspellings,
grammatical errors, colloquial phrases, inventive punctuation and loose
sentence structure
Example:
“ ‘Afraid of folks,’ they said! I guess she won't be troubled no
great with 'em up to the old place!”
1. Underline two examples of regional dialect within the above
sentence from “A White Heron.”
2. Label each example as to what type of regional dialect is
being used.
3. Translate each example as to what it should be or really is
meant.
4. Explain the purpose of Jewett’s portrayal of old Mrs. Tiley in
speaking this way.
STYLISTIC COMPONENTS
CONT’D
2. Regional Dialect -the accurate portrayal of how a person from a particular region actually speaks, evident in purposeful misspellings,
grammatical errors, colloquial phrases, inventive punctuation and loose sentence structure
Task: Find 3 examples of regional dialect within text and list your
examples in a chart that replicates the following:
L
O
C
A
T
I
O
N
Bottom
2nd para.
on
Page 2
Regional Dialect
“…a good ways."
Type
Translation
Purpose
Colloquial
Phrase
Far away
Assists reader in recognizing Sylvia
has fully acclimated to the country
life.
Stylistic components cont’d
cont’d
Symbolism -- when an object represents an idea
Item
Geranium
Description
Most WILL have multiple descriptions
Location
“Everybody said that it was a good change for a little maid who
had tried to grow for eight years in a crowded manufacturing
town, but, as for Sylvia herself, it seemed as if she never had been
alive at all before she came to live at the farm. She thought often
with wistful compassion of a wretched geranium that belonged to
a town neighbor.”
Para. 2
Page 1
Symbolizes
Sylvia
Nature
Why
-It stands out in the city setting, but belongs in a rural
setting… symbolizes Sylvia, who belongs in nature.
-It also represents the suffocating nature of the city in
comparison to the farm…symbolizes nature, wretched in
city but would thrive on the farm.
Pine
Task:
Sylvia
1.
2.
3.
Ornithologist
Heron
Jack Knife
4.
List descriptions of the items on the left, as many as you
can find, skim and scan the entire text.
List the location.
Determine what each item could symbolize based on
the descriptions you have listed.
Explain your reasoning as to why you have come to
that conclusion
TASK:
L.F.1.1.3 Analyze, interpret, and evaluate how authors use
techniques and elements of fiction to effectively communicate an idea
or concept.
As a Regionalist writer in “A White Heron,” how does
Sarah Orne Jewett convey her purpose?
Divulge what the purpose of this short story is, and
how Jewett achieves this purpose. You will Discuss
the literary elements used, specifically, the use of style
and the following components of style: (imagery,
regional dialect, and symbolism). Be sure to include
multiple examples to support your answer.