Frogs & Herons = Twain & Jewett

What a lovely start to our readings for the quarter. On one level, it was a sampling of literature of place. Another look could uncover an investigation of mankind and his relationship with nature. (Though it is a challenge to read into a man's friendship with a frog.) Regardless of any similar underlying themes in their work, these contemporaries have very different voices.

Twain's stories are much better known in Literature, of course. Perhaps this is a result of his use of humor in his writing. He certainly worked it well in this little jaunt into Calavarus County. The storyline is clever and the (tall) tales amusing. Still, what really got me was the way Twain was itching to get out of earshot of the narrator. He took such lovely little jabs at the storyteller's deadpan way of orating, saying that the man "regarded [the story] as a really important matter, and admired its two heroes as men of transcendent genius in finesse" (1273). It makes me wonder whether he included that description in order to supply the reader with the correct modifiers with which to describe Twain's writings themselves.

While Twain's story used dialect and its charming southern characters to compose a snapshot of place, Jewett painted a picture of a beautifully secluded, coastal New England life. White Heron is told from the point of view of a 9 year old girl with the perspective of a seemingly adult narrative voice. It is a story of cohabitation: of cow and girl, girl and grandmother, and eventually girl and nature. Jewett quite literally lifts the young girl out of her forest and gives her new perspective on life. When Sylvy climbs to the treetop she feels "as if she too could go flying away among the clouds". Atop the tree Sylvy is said to "[know] his secret now, the wild, light, slender bird that floats and wavers" (1597). I believe the secret to be more than the location of his nest. She has discovered the value of the world in which she lives. She has seen the world as the Heron does, from atop a tree.

There is a place I used to visit as a child growing up in Kentucky that gave me a similar feeling. Atop the mountain where I grew up, there was a rock formation with a limestone shelf- perfect for sitting on while wishing for wings.