ns. Sylvia has been on the farm for a year now, but she still thinks about her industrial existence from a year ago. She wonders if everything is still carrying on in the same way as when she lived in the town. Sylvia recalls her adolescent adversary: the great-red faced boy. I think the great-red faced boy represents the industrial world to some degree because he frightens Sylvia, and when she thinks of him she wants to escape to the safety of the bushes. Thus, the rural world and nature are a sanctuary from the industrial world for Sylvia. Perhaps this escape parallels Sylvia's real escape from the industrial world to the sanctuary of the farm. I think Jewett supports this by writing "The thought of the great-red face boy who used to chase and frighten her made her hurry along the path to escape from the shadows of the trees" (133). Again, it is important to consider the woods as a shelter for Sylvia. I do not think that Sylvia is afraid of the trees. Rather, I think this passage seems to reinforce the idea that Sylvia is escaping from the industrial world, in her memories and in her values.Yet, at this point in the narrative, I still perceive Sylvia as a fearful and timid girl. Mrs. Tilley, Sylvia's grandmother, supports this perception by saying that Sylvia is "Afraid of folks" (133). Additionally, this passage seems to show us that Sylvia is confined by late nineteenth - century notions of female vulnerability, modesty, and passivity. However, on the farm Sylvia is now free to explore and stray about outdoors. As a result of her life in the farm, we can see many examples of Sylvia's gradual escape from the constraints of the industrial world's value system. Moreover, we begin to accept Sylvia as a genuine "little woods-girl "(133). Sylvia wants to protect the natural world and its values, serenity, and animals against the industrial outsiders. The presence of the hunter symbolizes the industrial outsider because...
