as become more concerned about the natural world rather than the industrial one. I think the passage that most adequately describes this moment comes near the end of the narrative: No, she must keep silence! What is it that suddenly forbids her and makes her dumb? Has she bee nine years growing and now, when the great world for the first time outs out a hand to her, must she thrust is aside for a bird's sake? The murmur of the pine tree's branches in her ears, she remembers how the white heron came flying through the golden air and how they watched the sea and the morning together, and Sylvia cannot speak; she cannot tell the heron's secret and given its life away. (138) Sylvia knows that if she divulges the white heron's location to the hunter, she will not only destroy the bird's spirit but her own as well. This power she now has is something that will comfort her because now she is alone; she is alone with nature. And as one must have an identity to survive in nature, Sylvia must save her own identity and appreciate her new values in order to survive.By presenting the competing sets of industrial and rural values, Jewett's "A White Heron" gives us a rich and textured story that privileges nature over industry. I think the significance of this story is that it gives us an urgent and emphatic view about nature and the dangers that industrial values and society can place upon it and the people who live in it. Still, we are led to feel much like Sylvia. I think we are encouraged to protect nature, cherish our new values and freedoms, and resist the temptations of other influences that can tempt us to destroy and question the importance of the sublime gifts that living in a rural world can bestow upon us. ...
