A WHITE HERONCaitlyn & Andrea

“Today I have grown taller by walking with the trees.” Karlee Wilson baker

QUOTE

What or Theme Statement In Sarah Orne Tewtt’s “A White Heron”

the author dramatizes the young heroine’s adventure by showing through a struggle, humans and nature can come to a unified relationship as they manifest their beauty through each other.

How or Literary Elements

Nature Imagery Tone Shifts Figurative Language Compound- complex sentence Simple Sentence Diction with pure connotation Third person omniscient Perspective change

Simple sentence shows the connection between nature and humans

Line 10: “Sylvia knew it well” Zealous for nature Line 27: “Sylvia felt her way easily”

Nature Imagery show the struggle in the beginning before the shift

Lines 20-21: “with her bare feet and fingers, that pinched and held like a bird’s claws to the monstrous ladder reaching up, up, almost to the sky itself.”

Lines 25-27: “a bird fluttered off its nest, and a red squirrel ran to and fro and scolded pettishly at the harmless housebreaker”

Tone Shifts show how humans and nature manifest their beauty through each other

Zealous until line 40 “old pine towered above them all” “first she must mount the white oak tree” “Slyvia began with utmost bravery to mount to the top of it, with

tingling, eager blood coursing the channels of her whole frame” Lyrical in lines 41-54

“through all its ponderous frame as it felt this determined spark of human spirit creeping and climbing from higher branch to branch.”

Triumphant in lines 55-68 “She stood trembling and tired but wholly triumphant, high in the

tree top.” “There was a sea with dawning sun making a golden dazzle

over it.”

Figurative Language reveals unified relationship yet struggle between nature & human

Metaphor: Line 27: “ harmless house breaker”

Personification: Line 44-46: “as it felt this determined spark of human spirit creeping and climbing”

Simile: Line 55: “ like a pale star”

Compound Complex Sentence shows the balance created

Lines 55-58: “Sylvia's face was like a pale star, if one had seen it from the ground , when the last thorny bough was passed, and she stood trembling and tired but wholly triumphant, high in the tree-top.”

Alliteration shows emphasis

3rd person omniscient shows how humans and nature both have feelings and are unified

Line 10: “Sylvia knew it well” Line 27: “Sylvia felt her way easily” Line 41: “The tree seemed to lengthen

itself”

Diction with pure connotation show the balanced and unified relationship

Lines 68-69 “church steeples” “white villages Shows a balanced world, unified

relationship

Literal perspective change shows the unified relationship

Line 8: “old pine towered above them all”

Line 58: “high in the tree top” Line 67: “Westward, the woodlands and

farms reached miles and miles into the distance; here and there were church steeples, and white villages; truly it was a vast and awesome world. “

How We Can Relate

Hiking at

young life camp