A White Heron is a story of a girl who was raised in town and one day meets a bird hunter looking for a white heron to shoot. She knows where a white heron is, but is torn between her newly acquired affection for the hunter and her old love for nature and birds.
             In the first part of her story, the author establishes a bound between Sylvia and the hunter. It is interesting how at first Sylvia perceives the hunter as an "enemy". Her weariness is briefly justified by alluding to bad past experiences with "city" boys since Sylvia had spent the first eight years of her life in a "crowded manufacturing town." Also the paragraphs surrounding their encoounter have a tone that suggests that Sylvia is in danger.
             The hunter offers Sylvia $10 in exchange for locating his next hunting prize, the white heron. She wonders what treasures $10 would bring her. The next day she went with him to hunt for the birds, although she can't understand why her new found friend would kill the thing he proclaims to love and admires so much. On the other hand Slyvia is impressed by the hunter. I think the girl is at an age nine when she is starting to understand what arouses her, and maybe in this case it is not men but she cannot relate her feelings to the boy, or to anyone else. Slyvia has the need and desire to be loved by this man and makes the decision to help him find the white heron. If she chooses to help this young hunter to win his prize then she will be going along with society's norms for a young lady, and lose her own identity.
             She has to climb the tree to see the white heron and this is the turning point of Slyvia because when she climbs, she decided not to tell him where the white heron is. "No, she must keep silence! What is it that suddenly forbids her and makes her dumb? Has she been nine years growing and now, when the great world for the first time puts out a hand to her, must she thrust it aside fo
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