Journal 14: Sarah Orne Jewett

Michelle Romero
Eng. 48b
Dr. Scott Lankford

"A White Heron"

"The woods were already filled with shadows one June evening, just before eight o' clock, though a bright sunset still glimmered faintly among the trunks of the trees."

This opening line sets the scene for the story. The first thing that caught my attention was Jewett's decision to say it was a June evening. This just doesn't fit the poetic flow and rhythm. But, that I think is the point. While Jewett is very descriptive and uses poetic metaphors, she also expresses a shift away from the ordinary. An ordinary, yet rhythmically in tune sentence would have said "The woods were already filled with shadows one July evening just before eight o'clock..." When the word June is spoken, the reader's lips are pursed together to create a different tone, one which stops you in your tracks.

Jewett also highlights events which typically go unnoticed. For example, she writes, "There was a stirring in the great boughs overhead. They were full of little birds and beasts that seemed to be wide awake, and going about their world, or else saying good-night to each other in sleepy twitters." In these lines, Jewett expresses her artistic style which emphasizes nature and the beautiful things in nature which exist. She does not color the setting by writing fluffy phrases; she embraces it as it is. In this particular passage, she gives ever greater life to the little birds by suggesting they may even be chirping "good-night" to each other.

This is part of Jewett's local colorist type writing. She is aware of the environment and gives her human audience insight as to its role in their lives. Today, in the bay area, I don't know how many actually even hear the quiet chirping of the birds, but surely we don't stop to think what they might be saying.

Jewett has a calm way of stopping and smelling the roses in her stories.