Motifs are recurring symbols which support the themes or main ideas in any story. In A White Heron, the young sportsman's gun is a recurring motif.
To Sylvia, the gun represents strange emotions associated with masculinity, an area she's too young to explore but which, nevertheless, fascinates her.
Sylvia would have liked him vastly better without his gun; she could not understand why he killed the very birds he seemed to like so much
