Robert Fitzgerald. But the history of the South itself came to me mainly through the stories I heard in my family. But I could not remember that it had revealed the slightest interest in the South as a subject of focus or reflection. He walked through the streets of colored town as naturally as he walked to work. Portail de ressources lectroniques en sciences humaines et sociales, Flannerys Ghost: Paradigms of the Holy Ghost in Three Stories by Flannery OConnor, The Journal of the Short Story in English: presentation, Joycean Drama and the Remaking of Yeats's Irish Theatre in Ivy Day in the Committee Room", Catalogue des 609 revues. 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. 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. Does anybody really believe there is a body in the creek or are they just having great time being outdoors together in the precious last waning days of early fall. It was written forty years after The Wide Net but I was gratified to find her speak of myth and memory in a way that confirmed what I thought I had found in the story. . His name was Patrick Duval. 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. There seemed to be a force in the family that drove it to act or speak out, with or without the common consensus. Then there are the other adult members of the search party, the six Doyle brothers and their dogs, and the eight Malone brothers, eight giants with great long black eyelashes (Welty, Collected Stories 173). I believe my shock at having to account to myself as a southerner when I arrived in my early twenties in Chapel Hill, and faced the impressive body of scholarship on southern myth then in fashion, helps explain why. Knowing Eudora Weltys love of Ireland and the Irish, the echo is surely deliberate. 6It 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. The second half of the story is rich in events, but the outcome is never in doubt. 171). 7William Wallace Jamieson, the first words of the story, and a name I will return to, is a young man who has been married to his wife, Hazel, for a year. Print. Later on I was told that the killers were black men, and that members of our family had made sure they were given a fair trial. Later on I was given an army jeep salvaged from the war. She begins by describing a milestone in her childhood, a gift of the ten-volume Our Wonder World on her sixth or seventh birthday: There were the fairy talesGrimm, Andersen, the English, the French, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and there was Aesop and Reynard the Fox; there were the myths and legends, Robin Hood, King Arthur, and St. George and the Dragon, even the history of Joan of Arc; a whack of Pilgrims Progress and a long piece of Gulliver. "The Wide Net - Quotes" eNotes Publishing Ed. After politely answering my questions about the Hurston papers, he turned to me and spoke for a good thirty minutes about my grandfather. He did not smoke the cigar, he chewed it, and as a boy it was best to stay on his windward side. I was fifteen years old, and was the only white in the group of workers. As far as living space was concerned, however, the town was strictly divided into white and black, and though the blacks were often seen in the white district, there were few whites who ventured into colored town. in Marrs 70-71). Now a host of biblical allusions begin to prevail over the Greek and Roman. with a celebration of memory that for her has now become a personal creed, and has allowed her to begin her life as a writer. He loves to pontificate, and spends most of the day talking and giving advice. Once every now and then I rode my horse to school where there was a rail fence and where the teachers allowed us to eat our lunch sitting down by the horses. In those days the post office had a small shop that sold tobacco and newspapers. So I grew up surrounded by southern voices. A more distant past was hidden behind the Spanish place names and the faces of the Seminole Indians who worked as cowboys on the ranches. 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. 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. 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. Now that I have tried to do justice to my rereading of the story, which was, and is, my main purpose throughout these reflections, there should be no objection if I back up a bit and mention a few of the memories I carried with me when I entered the new world of the Old South at the university. When the search party spies a large water snake, a local legend everyone knows as the King of Snakes, William Wallace stares him down. As we discover, we remember; remembering, we discover; and most intensely do we experience this when our separate journeys converge (Welty. He walked on. 5I do not mean to suggest that I find anything of myself in William Wallace, nor in his search for Hazel. Shortly after I finished graduate school and began to read more widely about the South I learned that Zora Neale Hurston had lived her last years in my home town, and was buried there. Wives and girlfriends would be gathered under the windows, and the banter and singing between them and the men in jail are impossible to exaggerate. I believe my shock at having to account to myself as a southerner when I arrived in my early twenties in Chapel Hill, and faced the impressive body of scholarship on southern myth then in fashion, helps explain why. The shock will take a little time to absorb, but he has now found himself, and is beginning to embrace his new role as a father. But I learned too that the family prided itself on having been against slavery, and on having never owned a slave. 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. Brainstorm a list of topics for a podcast. I do not want to leave the impression that my grandfather was in any sense a rebel or an outsider. Now us got scales, Sam cried out. What touched me more, and what I remember best now, were the lives around me while growing up. the citation above will include either 2 or 3 dates. eNotes Editorial. The fact that William Wallace allows them to come even though they are too young to be of much help may imply that the value of his own fatherhood is beginning to dawn on him. Nature is the wide-open playground of both good and evil, and it is best to be wary when the thunder roars. There is the miraculous catch of fish, and the hymns William and Virgil hear while walking back home: They were having the Sacred Harp Sing on the grounds of an old white church glimmering there at the crossroads, far below. When William arrives alone at his house, he sees something he had never seen, a rainbow at night (Welty. I think my grandfathers reputation helped me too in an experience that will stay with me as long as I live. When later on I read Faulkners praise of natural courtesy I thought of Foots at once. William Wallace will soon demonstrate a stronger will in a more heroic gesture than catching a rabbit. William Wallace is beset on all sides by distractions, advice, omens, signs of all sorts. So I grew up surrounded by southern voices. The memory is a living thingit too is in transit. The one I want to tell about my grandfather concerns another man involved in the Zora Neale Hurston saga. 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. See production, box office & company info. Jamieson takes a bit more twisting to unravel a historical connection. He saw that the bodies of the frozen birds had fallen out of the trees, and he fell down and wept for his father and mother, to whom he had not said good-bye (Welty, First Love,, (and thus the collection itself) concludes with the portrait of a young woman who is rejected, and is forced to face absolute desolation and a serial rape. After all, where else can I look for a better source? The Wide Net. But the history of the South itself came to me mainly through the stories I heard in my family. Still, if I should apologize, I do. 2023 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 3. Review and critique podcasts produced by other students as a basis for creating their own segments. The Wide Net (1987) Plot Showing all 0 items Jump to: Summaries It looks like we don't have any Plot Summaries for this title yet. William Jamieson comes home one night from being out with friends and finds a note from his pregnant wife, who is threatening suicide by jumping off bridge He calls his friends and they go to the river searching for her, they also recruit bystanders to help out . After all, for William it is only October and the baby will not be born until April (fall and rebirth go hand in hand in this story). 2023
. Its going to turn from hot to cold, and we can kill the hog thats ripe and have fresh meat to eat. The grown-up Doyles and Malones are fixed in their undefined identities forever. 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. The name of Edna Earle comes from the heroine of the most popular novel in the South after the Civil War, by Augusta Jane Evans. Myths and legends and symbols are filled with wisdom, but it is the human spirit which has done the filling, and not the other way around. Still, casting around for something to say about the way the South (from within and without) seems to have been designed, destined, or doomed, to generate a mythic vision, or visions, often in contradiction with each other, my thoughts could not help going back to The Wide Net.. When he surfaces he is still in shock: And when William Wallace came up it was in an agony from submersion, which seemed an agony of the blood and of the very heart, so woeful he looked (Welty, Collected Stories 180). LOA books are distributed worldwide by Penguin Random House. On rereading the story I soon realized that my instincts had not failed me completely. The narration continues to speculate how (who knew?) 176). He walked through the streets of colored town as naturally as he walked to work. Even though there is no southern history in the story, surely his name is steeped in historical associations. 40I have tried to explain, to myself more than to anyone else, that the multiplication of myth and legend in The Wide Net is there, in all its rich jumbling, to nudge the reader elsewhere. 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. Then group returns to town, everyone carrying their heavy strings of fish. The Pearl River is the prime example in The Wide Net and therefore the source of selfhood that will save William Wallace. Lush, precise, and unpredictable in every line, The Wide Net is one of the greatest odes to the natural world ever written. The second is the date of And if my commentaries, such as they are, do make me vulnerable to all sorts of criticism, especially when judged by the principles of pure scholarship (principles I would be the first to preach), at least I cannot be faulted on what I say about my own autobiography. When William Wallace praises Hazels intelligence, Virgil agrees: Shes a lot smarter than her cousins in Beulah Edna Earle never did get to be what youd call a heavy thinker. He towered over the others, who were all big and tough. The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty was published in 1980. The scenery the pace and the dialog are like a soothing low speed raft trip. 25I began this paper with a confession. My grandfather, as I will discuss later on, was one of the reasons I had trouble with the grand southern myths I discovered at the university. There I was shocked to learn I may have been born into a myth, despite myself. I could easily call to mind other memories that would deepen and darken the story. William Wallace takes the lead back to Dover, and back to Hazel who has never left their house. 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 Mr Duval finished, and stood up to leave, he reached out to me and shook my hand: Your granddaddy was the only white man I ever loved.. Right before it begins in force, a holy-ghostly benediction or aeolian charma wind touched each man on the forehead (Welty. Usually there would be shade trees to stretch out under and cool off, but there were none here. The narration speculates on what he experiences in the solitude of the river bottom: So far down and all alone, had he found Hazel? He was a black deputy who had saved Hurstons letters and manuscripts from a fire after her death. Eudora Welty could use myth otherwise, as she does in such works as her masterpiece The Golden Apples. 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. Press in the Library of Southern Civilization series. Later on I was given an army jeep salvaged from the war. It is more of a distraction than a signpost, unlike, I would be the first to admit, the names of Virgil and Hazel, more fixed in their roles. The more common it is, however, the less likely it can be seized upon for special consideration. Hazels name evokes the Celtic symbol of wisdom and the source of life hidden in underground water. Though she is changing every day, she has really not changed at all. And after a few minutes she took him by the hand and led him into the house, smiling as if she were smiling down on him (Welty, What is missing in my account of rereading the story is my misremembering the total absence of southern history, a conspicuous absence. I benefited from these books as much as anyone. 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. 182)reassures the reader that all will be well, at least for the time being. The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child. 181). The memory is a living thingit too is in transit. She had just published a masterpiece of modern realism in which dream and the inner world are as vividly brought to life as the outside, but this is an affirmation of the living human mind, not an evasion. Robbie worries about lightning. He lets the little infant plant fall free, and from now on the search is over. In keeping with the Scottish link, it might be reversed to be read the son of James. Later on I was told that the killers were black men, and that members of our family had made sure they were given a fair trial. Her most acclaimed work is the novel The Optimist's Daughter, which won her a Pulitzer Prize in 1973, as well as the short stories "Life at the P.O." and "A Worn Path.". Trans. I said earlier that the town was segregated, but with little visible racial tension. 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. 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. 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. The fact that William Wallace allows them to come even though they are too young to be of much help may imply that the value of his own fatherhood is beginning to dawn on him. That was only part of the legend. Hickory tree there will be yellow. 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. Hazels name evokes the Celtic symbol of wisdom and the source of life hidden in underground water. He is more at ease with the helpless wild creature of the woods than with Hazel at home. N 102 Library of America Series. And if my commentaries, such as they are, do make me vulnerable to all sorts of criticism, especially when judged by the principles of pure scholarship (principles I would be the first to preach), at least I cannot be faulted on what I say about my own autobiography. 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