Robbie is right to be frightened. When he comes back the next morning, Hazel is gone, and he finds a letter from her telling him she has gone to drown herself in the river. 22There is, however, a simpler explanation, of the South to be sure, but leaving the story still uncomplicated by history. 38I do not want to leave the impression that my grandfather was in any sense a rebel or an outsider. He goes inside and there is Hazel! His grandfather had been branded by the devil in a storm, Lightnin drawed a pitchfork right on our grandpappys cheek, stayed till he died (Welty, Collected Stories 183). When we went to the movies on Saturday night, we would never hesitate to stop outside the county jail across the street from the Sunrise Theater. She ends. During the wars of Scottish independence in the thirteenth century, William Wallace was the great leader and hero, whom popular tradition in the mists of time has now elevated to mythical proportions. Foots waited until they were all inside. There is certainly no question that Williams dive to the bottom of the river brings him up a new man. Remember that (Welty, Collected Stories 176). Eudora Welty could use myth otherwise, as she does in such works as her masterpiece. Start your 48-hour free trial to get access to more than 30,000 additional guides and more than 350,000 Homework Help questions answered by our experts. eNotes Editorial. Saying so, I freely admit my pirouetting into The Wide Net does take some special pleading. Right before it begins in force, a holy-ghostly benediction or aeolian charma wind touched each man on the forehead (Welty, Collected Stories 182)reassures the reader that all will be well, at least for the time being. He had earned the name by winning a juke joint contest for having the biggest feet in Florida. I grew up during segregation, but the racism was subdued, and codified down to a syllable and a glance. bio notes: born: 4/13/1909 died: 7/23/2001 born as: Eudora Welty nationality: USA American short-story writer and novelist whose work is focused with great precision on the regional manners . Given her love of Hurston, a spell had been cast, and the promise of a new myth stopped her in her tracks. On rereading the story I soon realized that my instincts had not failed me completely. I would agree, and I did try to explore its implications as I reworked my way through the story. This is the truth that William Wallace discovers by himself, and somehow memory, lost and found, is crucial to the discovery. Print. Like my grandfather, Beanie was color blind as far as race was concerned. He towered over the others, who were all big and tough. A man named William Wallace Jamieson has a pregnant wife called Hazel, and he's been going out a lot lately until finally, one night, he stays out all night. This was not because it was dangerous, or unseemly; it was simply against the code. The absence of history serves the same purpose, I believe, as the excessive abundance of symbol and myth the reader must negotiate before setting his sights on the inner spirit William Wallace possesses to exist all by himself. Trans. But even children are sensitive to the boundary between the real and the fictional, and would hate to hear their father repeat the soliloquies of Hamlet from breakfast to bedtime even if he made a living as an actor. Sam wore them around his head, with a knot over his forehead and loops around his ears, and Robbie Bell walked behind and stared at them (Welty, Collected Stories 179). He surely died the poorest judge in all of Florida, but he did leave me his gold Hamilton watch which had been given him when he retired from working on the railroad as a young man in Georgia. Rereading The Wide Net brought many of these memories back to mind, and it brought back to mind too my dismay in Chapel Hill at fitting them into a theory of myth, or even at weaving them into a common pattern of southern identity. Ignorant as I was, I had no doubt I was southern, born and bred. She is in her early twenties (an age we might give to William Wallace) when she discovers the gift of memory, and in her seventies when she confirms it: Writing fiction has developed in me an abiding respect for the unknown in a human lifetime and a sense of where to look for the threads, how to follow, how to connect, find in the thick of the tangle what clear line persists. One of the most famous sons of a James was Bonnie Prince Charles, son of James Stuart, grandson of King James II, and leader of the final Jacobite Rebellion in the middle of the eighteenth century to restore the Scottish Stuarts to the throne of England and Scotland. That was only part of the legend. It would not be amiss at this point to give a brief account of what happens in The Wide Net. It might help set the stage for those of you who have never read it, or who, like me before I took it up again, may have to struggle to remember the details of an earlier reading. When William dives into the river, and emerges transformed, the myth-minded reader may then think once more of the Aeneid, and of the river Lethe which the original Virgil tells us must be imbibed by dead souls in order for them to be reborn. Instead of one of the more conventional pieties, here was a crying out to both God and man against injustice. The more common it is, however, the less likely it can be seized upon for special consideration. Just as William Wallace is beset on all sides by a welter of signs, until he forgets the name of the Pearl River and takes his dive to the bottom, the reader is mystified by the dazzling parade of mythical allusions until he too reaches the same place. Old Doc lives on a hill and can usually be found in his rocking chair. publication in traditional print. But the shifting, or loss of identity, is a constant threat. But I could not remember that it had revealed the slightest interest in the South as a subject of focus or reflection. To begin with, the southern world I grew up in, a small coastal town in Florida in the years after WWII, was not all that representative of the South. He had nothing to gain, and everything to lose, by defying convention, but I do not think his prestige in the white community was ever at risk. Already a member? What touched me more, and what I remember best now, were the lives around me while growing up. When was Delta Wedding set?? The storm in The Wide Net seems bent more on celebration than punishment, however. In the afternoons my friends and I would go down to the icehouse where sacks of ice were filled for the professional fishing boats. Even the trees have bones that crack when lightning strikes. His name was Patrick Duval. Beginning as a folktale of the barely possible innocence of a perennial boy with a cow-lick, at a loss and turning in circles, the story right in the middle changes skin, and the boy and the narrative miraculously transform themselves into a one-of-a-kind human triumph. . I realized that the origins of these myths had to be traced and analyzed, not least of all to better understand their impact on American culture and history. As Welty adds in her autobiography, there were Edna Earles all over the South. The Wide Net (185) :Eudora Welty Breaking up of the party Discussed by Jenna Campbell William Wallace Jameson Hazel In old 1300s Great war hero of Scotland Williams Wife 3 mths Pregnate Virgil in the wars for Scottish Independence Conflicted main character, Best friend of William almost like his voice of reason Also In Dante's Inferno eNotes.com will help you with any book or any question. It was told by Alexander Stephens, the vice-president of the Confederacy. , notably First Love, and A Still Moment, to name the most powerful. I said earlier that the town was segregated, but with little visible racial tension. William Wallace knows now that Hazel holds the secret mystery that will continue to make him more of his own man, and he is willing to follow her lead as long as it takes: He climbed to his feet too and stood beside her trying to look where she looked. When they reach the river Old Doc remarks that the world has been turned to gold by the autumn sun: today, in October sun, its all goldsky and tree and water. Eudora Welty is comically playing on the popular refrain that such a collection of rural men and boys could be found only in the Deep South. County judges are elected, and he never lost an election because there was never any opposition. But the shifting, or loss of identity, is a constant threat. Here time, also, is subject to confluence. He had earned the name by winning a juke joint contest for having the biggest feet in Florida. This is the advantage of relying on memory rather than myth when digging back for the truth. Walker Percy has written somewhere that a boy who has a Hamilton from his grandfather is a true son of the South, and I still have mine. I say this because when, published a review that claimed that the stories were about as human as a fish. Eudora Welty was never much affected by reviews, good or bad, but this one raised her hackles, and she wrote to Diarmuid Russell: I saw the. It was the county seat, so there were a few imposing public buildings. For much of the story at least, William Wallace and the other characters are closer to the simple stock figures of song and legend than they are to men and women in the real world. Subscribe. Beginning as a folktale of the barely possible innocence of a perennial boy with a cow-lick, at a loss and turning in circles, the story right in the middle changes skin, and the boy and the narrative miraculously transform themselves into a one-of-a-kind human triumph. At least this is true of the first half of The Wide Net. The second half is a different matter entirely and herein lies one of the genial transformations that The Wide Net performs as naturally and as completely as one season turns into another. It was a huge success, a romantic tome so overwritten and full of adjectives that Eudora Welty in her autobiography says her mother told her it used to be recommended to take it out with a chair when watering the roses. Still, as Old Doc exclaims to William: Everybody knows Pearl River is named the Pearl River (Welty. 183). The white families, like my own, had migrated there from their farms in South Georgia in the hope of improving their prospects. 39These were some of the memories humming in my head when I began reading the books about Southern myth in Chapel Hill. Old Doc reminds me of the old men in another great modern folk story, The Weavers Grave, by the Irish writer Seumas OKelly. It begins with the story of a deaf boy whose parents have been killed or captured by the Indians and who is left abandoned in the end, completely alone: He did not know how far he had gone on the Liberty Road when the posse came riding up behind and passed him. Downtown black and white mingled and spoke with each other every day. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality study guides that feature detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, quotes, and essay topics. enotes editorial.vsenotes.com20 jan. 2023 . Like the theater, like the wearing of masks, like the playing of games, myths are ways of trying out the world, testing other lives, often for the sheer joy of forgetting our own predicament. As we discover, we remember; remembering, we discover; and most intensely do we experience this when our separate journeys converge (Welty, One Writers Beginnings 102). Marrs, Suzanne. The town was neatly divided into black and white neighborhoods, but my grandfathers house had been deliberately chosen because it was right on the border between the two and my cousins and I played and talked with black children every day. note:when citing an online source, it is important to include all necessary dates. Edna Earle could sit and ponder all day on how the little tail of the C got through the L in a Coca-Cola sign (Welty. They stamped the ground and pawed each other, more like horses than men. There is no great central Southern myth in The Wide Net. But I must have half-remembered that the potency of the mythic, including a few old southern folktales or legends, does play a key role in the story, especially by pounding the pedal throughout on the truth that no myth, potent or not, can ever measure up to one mans solitary predicament. The second half of the story is rich in events, but the outcome is never in doubt. CSNET bridged between the original (closed) ARPANET and the NSFNET (open) by . Carrying his great string of fish, he enters at the head of the party into Dover which now looked somehow like new after the rain (Welty. William Wallace is beset on all sides by distractions, advice, omens, signs of all sorts. It was perfect for riding out on the sand dunes at night, and for taking friends to the honky-tonks to hear one of our classmates wail out his versions of the old standards of Hank Williams and the brand new songs of Jerry Lee Lewis. Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Plot Summary of "The Wide Window" by Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler). Hazel is pregnant, and William is baffled by her changing attitude (she would not speak and her eyes glowed). Right after he got back, though, some of his old friends met him at a local tavern and asked him if it were true that he had run away from the fight. Now us got scales, Sam cried out. . Are there many other collections of the time framed with a stronger cry against the harsh realities of human fate? The web value rate of bigpicture.net is 49,209 USD. She claims that she was hiding when he read her letter, and he spanks her, insisting that she say she'll never do it again. Robbie worries about lightning. And we fished for the same fish from the same piers in the inlet. It has been a delightful day of adventure on the river for the Malones, the Doyles, and the others (including the reader), but the wide net (a sort of local myth itself) has caught nothing, except a haul of fish, a big eel, old shoes, the baby alligator, and a string of beads. I was fifteen years old, and was the only white in the group of workers. Walker Percy has written somewhere that a boy who has a Hamilton from his grandfather is a true son of the South, and I still have mine. He possesses an old mans horde of lifelong certitudes. What I want to single out is not his place in the community, which was central, but his difference from most of the adult white men I knew and observed. When we went to the movies on Saturday night, we would never hesitate to stop outside the county jail across the street from the Sunrise Theater. I was fifteen years old, and was the only white in the group of workers. Summary Themes Questions & Answers Analysis Characters Quotes Start Free Trial . 184). It did not cost much to have a horse and a small motor boat. Download the entire The Wide Net study guide as a printable PDF! Lush, precise, and unpredictable in every line, The Wide Net is one of the greatest odes to the natural world ever written. He returns to his wife better capable of living a meaningful, fulfilling life. William Wallace will soon demonstrate a stronger will in a more heroic gesture than catching a rabbit. The river never seems the same, yet even when William Wallace forgets its name, its ageless identity is never in question: The winding river looked old sometimes, when it ran wrinkled and deep under high banks where the roots of trees hung down, and sometimes it seemed to be only a young creek, shining with the colors of wildflowers (Welty. Its so sad that the culture that could have put these good hearted folks bare-feet in the creek was long ago swallowed up by progress. He took me in and introduced me to each worker by name. [] Any day now the change will come. 1. Everything just before it changes looks to be made of gold. Immediately William Wallace looked down, as though he thought of Hazel with the shining eyes, sitting at home and looking straight before her, like a piece of pure gold, too precious to touch (Welty, 176). It was a far better show than the movie. In my town there were cattle ranches and orange groves to the west, and a small fleet of shrimping boats chugging back and forth on the Indian River to and from the Atlantic. Then group returns to town, everyone carrying their heavy strings of fish. Ed. Still, the shock of my initial consternation never left me, thus my impulse to turn back to Eudora Welty and my memory of The Wide Net and its mysteries when I was invited to talk about the great myths of the South. A man and a woman, unknown to each, but sharing the commonality of being from the North, meet in New Orleans and commence upon a strange tour that almost verges on the romantic, but gets only as far as one hesitant kiss. 20Still, going back to William Wallace, I can hear someone somewhere asking about his name. she had been filled to the brim with that elation that they all remembered, like their own secret, the elation that comes of great hopes and changes (Welty. . In this respect, my grandfather was a rare exception. originally published: New York : Harcourt Brace and Company 1943 We offered this copy of the first edition in our Catalog 119. reference info. For one thing, I think I would have trouble arguing to myself, or to my wife and family, that I never existed, even as a boy, yet Eudora Welty is writing in the tradition of the modern folk tale. When Mother Nature, with majestic abandon, unleashes a storm for the ages (or the makers of myths) to show who will always rule the roost, William Wallace is not deterred or disturbed. Phone orders: 1-800-964-5778 Request product #201055. More important to my purpose here, however, they did help me throw some light on the pluralities of myth and legend that had confused me when I had first read The Wide Net. I realize this is a self-indulgent proposition, but to be honest, I no longer have much faith in finding the definitive myth of the collective South. 10The Malones are like horses, and the Doyles are never without their dogs. I had not forgotten the references to history and to historical figures in some of the stories of. He told me that my grandfather had told him he had left Georgia to come to Florida because he hated the way blacks were treated. He was a black deputy who had saved Hurstons letters and manuscripts from a fire after her death. 2023
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