A White Heron: Themes

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

The Power of Greed to Corrupt

The hunter demonstrates his greedy nature in several ways throughout the story and comes to represent the materialism that rose in the United States during the Industrial Revolution. The narrator emphasizes the hunter’s audacious and self-centered behavior. His loud whistle cuts through the serene environment, causing the living creatures to run from their normal routines. The hunter is in a place far from home, and he has come to the area simply to take some of its beauty for himself. When he meets Sylvia, he expects to be provided with food and shelter, but he’s critical of the way country people live. When Mrs. Tilley talks about her sorrows, the hunter cuts her off to talk about himself and to pry information about the location of the nest of the heron he seeks to kill. The way he is determined to get the information out of Sylvia on the last day suggests that much of the charm Sylvia responds to is most likely him manipulating her feelings to get what he wants. The hunter comes out to this serene place and attempts to corrupt the pure soul of Sylvia through false kindness and the promise of ten dollars. However, in this story greed does not win, as Sylvia chooses not to relent to the hunter’s self-serving request.

The Devastating Effects of Industrialization

“A White Heron” serves as an allegory for what humans allow to be done to the environment in the name of progress and how more people need to become protectors rather than pillagers of the natural world. When “A White Heron” was published, the United States was realizing some of the negative environmental consequences of industrialization, and many people began to think the consequences were not worth the “improvements” offered by a cultural shift to working in factories instead of on farms. While most of “A White Heron” sees Sylvia wishing she could find the heron for the hunter, her experience with the heron and the sunrise gives Sylvia newfound empathy for how nature will suffer if she helps the hunter locate the nest. The experience also opens Sylvia’s eyes to how much power she holds because by just telling the hunter what she knows, Sylvia could cause so much damage to the animals and land she loves. The narrator speculates that the pine Sylvia climbs is the only tree left standing after the loggers came through many years earlier, and it is the catalyst for providing Sylvia with a new perspective that reinforces her respect for nature in all its glory.

The Competing Values of Solitude and Companionship

The value of human relationships versus the value of solitary time in nature is explored through Sylvia’s perspective. Sylvia struggles with human connection. She "doesn't like people" according to her mother and the memory of her bully at home still brings Sylvia intense fear a year after she's moved far away to the country. However, the desire for human connection is innate and Sylvia finds herself drawn to the hunter even though he represents a challenge to her deep respect for nature. While Sylvia is tempted to develop a relationship with the hunter, his request for her to tell him about the heron would require her to damage her connection to nature. The story is structured so that Sylvia must make a choice between the hunter’s acceptance of her or nature’s acceptance of her. The narrator subtly implies that Sylvia would not have been completely satisfied with her human relationship with the hunter and compares Sylvia’s love of the hunter to the loyalty a dog gives its master. If their relationship had continued, Sylvia would just be another subjugated creature under the hunter’s control.

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