SOURCE: “The Necessary Extravagance of Sarah Orne Jewett: Voices of Authority in ‘A White Heron,’” Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 19, No. 1, Winter, 1982, pp. 71–74.

In the following extract, Atkinson points out how Jewett portrayed the action in “A White Heron” from different viewpoints, including that of the main characters, the great pine tree anthropomorphized, and directly as the story's narrator.

“A White Heron” seems a simple story of simple people, in a simple time. Seems. But if we look more closely, we see that Jewett has used diverse and unusual devices to give this much anthologized¹ story the satisfying impact which puts us so at rest at its conclusion. In the next to last scene,² for example, she uses authorial voice and privilege in genuinely extravagant ways: a tree's thoughts are reported and given weight, and the author not only urgently whispers counsel to the main character but later...