deliberately refuses to shy away from vice, racism, pride, self-indulgence, and violence. Knowing Eudora Weltys love of Ireland and the Irish, the echo is surely deliberate. Aeneas needs the golden bough to allow him to safely travel through the underworld to find his father. He walked through the streets of colored town as naturally as he walked to work. The father of the white boys is rumored to have drowned in the Pearl River, and the father of the black boys had been struck by lightning and, as Robbie cries out during a storm, was dead three days, dead as that-there axe (Welty, Collected Stories 183). References to babies, for example, can be found everywhere, from the little man on the toy-like train, to the baby alligator, all the way to the corn shuck doll waiting by itself on the bench back in Dover. Updates? In 1940 she had accepted the offer of Diarmuid Russell (son of the Irish poet George Russell) to be her agent. It syncs contacts, emails, and events from email tools to Salesforce. eNotes.com, Inc. Are there many other collections of the time framed with a stronger cry against the harsh realities of human fate? As for me, being known as his grandson allowed me, and my two cousins who lived in his house, special status among the blacks, and a carelessness about crossing the color line. Still, if I should apologize, I do. in Marrs 103). Trans. And I found a note to myself slipped in the pages of my old single volume edition of the collection relating Eudora Weltys initial concept of writing a fictional history of the Old Natchez Trace. As we discover, we remember; remembering, we discover; and most intensely do we experience this when our separate journeys converge (Welty. 2On rereading the story I soon realized that my instincts had not failed me completely. They stamped the ground and pawed each other, more like horses than men. 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. I 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. They all carried their classic illustrations. It was told by Alexander Stephens, the vice-president of the Confederacy. He walked on. Sweet-gum red, hickory yellow, dogwood red, sycamore yellow. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Williams dive is not a baptism for the faint-hearted. The Great Wide Sea (2008), a novel by M. H. Herlong, follows sixteen-year-old Ben Byron, who mourns the loss of his mother with his younger brothers, Gerry and Dylan, while spending a year at sea.As Ben processes his grief, he clashes with his father, until he mysteriously vanishes from the boat one morning. He plays his role well, lost in his own performance, an unstoppable gramophone of platitudes, talking just to hear himself talk, but sometimes, almost despite himself, repeating nuggets of wisdom that bear directly on the quest itself: Were walking along in the changing-time. William Wallace takes the lead back to Dover, and back to Hazel who has never left their house. He walked through the streets of colored town as naturally as he walked to work. Both his grandfather and his father were struck by lightning. Foots waited until they were all inside. He possesses an old mans horde of lifelong certitudes. Seeing I was struggling with my bucket and shovel, he came right over and helped show me the right way to do it. 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. Still, if I should apologize, I do. The narration speculates on what he experiences in the solitude of the river bottom: So far down and all alone, had he found Hazel? 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. I have talked about William Wallace and The Wide Net, but I have said little about the assigned subject, the myth of the South. When William Wallace gets home, he notices a night rainbow over his house, though it clearly hadn't rained there. cite this page as follows: "the wide net - summary"enotes publishinged. 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.2 If we must look for hidden meanings, perhaps the symbolical would be a better avenue to explore than the historical. 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). Subscribe for more videos like this: http://youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=92YplusWhen Eudora Welty read at 92Y on April 22, 1985, it had been 32 y. The only shade was provided by a long tin shed next to the sludge bin. Recollections contains a fifty-page biographical essay by Forkner. Saying so, I freely admit my pirouetting into The Wide Net does take some special pleading. He no longer fears Hazels mother, and turns away without a flinch when she appears. Jamieson takes a bit more twisting to unravel a historical connection. In fact, it is not a baptism at all. The storm in The Wide Net seems bent more on celebration than punishment, however. He made a sign for me to follow him in what was now a blind tunnel steaming with sweat and humidity. Finding an Edna Earle in The Wide Net is like finding a magnolia tree in Mississippi, and should not force us to go back to. Myths are necessary to our lives and imagination, especially as children. [] Magnolia and live-oak never die. When he escaped he went back to his native state of Georgia and lived to a ripe old age. Backus, locally known as Beanie. They catch a baby alligator and the Malone brothers insist that they want to keep it. Hazel wands were traditionally used as dowsing rods. They all carried their classic illustrations. She is one of Hazels cousins. Corrections? The Pearl River is the prime example in The Wide Net and therefore the source of selfhood that will save William Wallace. But the history of the South itself came to me mainly through the stories I heard in my family. The only shade was provided by a long tin shed next to the sludge bin. 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. At least the small boys have names that set them apart. 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. In the title story, a man quarrels with his pregnant wife, leaves the house, and descends into a mysterious underwater kingdom where he meets The King of the Snakes, who forces him to confront the darker mysteries of nature. The roses needed a lot of water. It is a timeless story of three courageous women, Aibileen Clark, Minny Jackson, and Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, who defy the status quo and begin writing a novel from the perspective of the black maids of the white families. Internet, a system architecture that has revolutionized communications and methods of commerce by allowing various computer networks around the world to interconnect. He towered over the others, who were all big and tough. Of course the well-trained reader races through the possibilities and may stop on his way to consider the myth of the golden bough in the Aeneid. The Collected Stories. 33In this respect, my grandfather was a rare exception. Had he suspected down there, like some secret, the real, the true trouble that Hazel had fallen into, about which words in a letter could not speak Or in a myth, I cannot help adding. Though she is changing every day, she has really not changed at all. Grady is already a sort of father to Brucie. Us is the fishes (Welty, Collected Stories 183). William must will himself into a new man, and as a Jamieson, he must cease being a perpetual son, and affirm his status as a father. 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. I saw it 26 years ago and I wish it was on tonight. Myth and meaning in that book are indivisible. I learned that several young ancestors had been killed fighting for the Confederacy or had died soon after the war from disease. 2 Virgil of course is Dantes guide in The Divine Comedy through the Inferno and most of Purgatory. When I was invited to speak about the myth of the South, the thought of Weltys The Wide Net, came to my mind in a flash. What interests me more as the years go on is the life story of the individual southerner. They are just playing out a role for the simple joy of pretending, and will soon return to themselves. William must will himself into a new man, and as a Jamieson, he must cease being a perpetual son, and affirm his status as a father. 15The story ends with Hazel calling his name from the bedroom. Now a host of biblical allusions begin to prevail over the Greek and Roman. His edition of Alexander Stephens prison diary, Recollections of Alexander H. Stephens, was published by L.S.U. But Hazel is no rabbit as Virgil makes clear: Anybody can freeze a rabbit, that wants to he says, and promptly chases the rabbit away: Was you out catching cotton-tails, or was you out catching your wife? (Welty, Collected Stories 172). He is more at ease with the helpless wild creature of the woods than with Hazel at home. The white families, like my own, had migrated there from their farms in South Georgia in the hope of improving their prospects. And we fished for the same fish from the same piers in the inlet. enotes editorial.vsenotes.com20 jan. 2023 . And, to tell the truth, the details are daunting, especially as we are led down the old Natchez Trace towards the Pearl River, deeper and deeper into southern river country, a vast cradle of natural wonder that teems with vitality and mystery. 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, Collected Stories 187). He hated fighting, but he had never lost a fight, and all his rivals had given up trying. When Virgil finds a string of beads in the river, he gives them to Sam and Robbie. Engraved in large letters beneath the names was the single word: Murdered. These were the graves of her maternal grandparents who had been viciously axed to death by two men looking for easy prey and a few dollars. It is a plunge into the inner depths that strains every fibre of his being, and tests his spirit to the limit. The Wide Net and Other Stories. 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. I was not surprised he had been a good friend of Hurston, but I never found any reference to him in the standard biographies. Foots waited until they were all inside. The grown-up Doyles and Malones are fixed in their undefined identities forever. Scottish heroes and William Wallace Jamieson of The Wide Net, surely, we might be tempted to think, the combination brings southern history into the story despite all evidence to the contrary. Eudora Welty: A Biography. In one of her early letters to him she wrote about her desire to write a Mississippi book: She also asks Russell: Do you think I dare to have honest-to-God people walking around in the stories? When she allows William his ritual role of thinking himself the man of the house by letting him tamely slap and spank her, the reconciliation is complete. 14The second half of the story is rich in events, but the outcome is never in doubt. Print. 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. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc, 1980. The one I want to tell about my grandfather concerns another man involved in the Zora Neale Hurston saga. Robbie is right to be frightened. I had fished and hunted in the great inland swamps, and had built rafts of giant bamboo to ride with my friends down the St Lucie River, surely as haunting and as hidden away as the Pearl River in The Wide Net. The alligators slept with the water lilies and the night-blooming cereus, and the Spanish moss fell in thick curtains on both banks. He could lift hundred-pound sacks of fertilizer with each hand. Full Time Paid Internship Job Summary: Be a part of an innovative team and culture The Physical and Post-Production Technology department is responsible for a wide array of technologies across Industrial Light & Magic, Lucasfilm, and various other Walt Disney groups. 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). There is one more story about my grandfather that I need to relate. When I was invited to speak about the myth of the South, the thought of Weltys The Wide Net, came to my mind in a flash. 183). Trans. They marvel over the snake, but seem to feel satisfied by their feast. After politely answering my questions about the Hurston papers, he turned to me and spoke for a good thirty minutes about my grandfather. 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. He was the county judge, famous for his fairness in court, and loved by everyone who knew him, thus by the entire town. 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). It was the county seat, so there were a few imposing public buildings. He was a black deputy who had saved Hurstons letters and manuscripts from a fire after her death. 2. 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. Still, as Old Doc exclaims to William: Everybody knows Pearl River is named the Pearl River (Welty, Collected Stories 176). eNotes.com will help you with any book or any question. He returns to his wife better capable of living a meaningful, fulfilling life. Then he announced Boys, look right here, the Judge is his granddaddy. It is enough to make Virgil sigh with despair: when you go looking for what is lost, everything is a sign (Welty, Collected Stories 179). It is a plunge into the inner depths that strains every fibre of his being, and tests his spirit to the limit. 13There is certainly no question that Williams dive to the bottom of the river brings him up a new man. Like my grandfather, Beanie was color blind as far as race was concerned. 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. 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. If all this seems too good to be true, its only because I choose to stop. William Wallace is beset on all sides by distractions, advice, omens, signs of all sorts. I had not forgotten the references to history and to historical figures in some of the stories of. As Welty adds in her autobiography, there were Edna Earles all over the South. 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. This is the advantage of relying on memory rather than myth when digging back for the truth. 102). . Delta Wedding in 1946. 171). 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, Collected Stories 184). Apparently, there was one male survivor of the Battle of the Alamo in 1836. 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. 4Rereading 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. The second half of the story is rich in events, but the outcome is never in doubt. There is Virgil of course, living up to his name (but only in the mind of the reader, we need to remember) in that he is there to guide William on his quest, to keep him on the track, as he says. 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. 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. If there are three dates, the first date is the date of the original He had earned the name by winning a juke joint contest for having the biggest feet in Florida. When was Delta Wedding set?? 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). The second date is today's 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. Hazel wands were traditionally used as dowsing rods. I am ready to plead, however. [] Any day now the change will come. There is Old Doc, the local wise man who owns the net. I like to think too, along these same lines, that the comic folklore of the first half of the story makes his solitary dive in the Pearl River, and his transformation, more unpredictable, and thus more human. Perhaps nature itself, the mother of all myth, is the true heart of the story. See production, box office & company info. Sunlight was scarce and each turn of the river took one deeper into a ripe darkness smelling of frog spawn and wild magnolia. 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. 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. Print. note:when citing an online source, it is important to include all necessary dates. It runs in our family, Robbie says (Welty. 179). Summary of the net Rating: 6,6/10 562reviews The "net" is a term that refers to the internet, which is a global network of interconnected computers and servers that allows people to communicate and access information from all around the world. Old Mr. Winter will be standing in the door. 184). This was not because it was dangerous, or unseemly; it was simply against the code. After all, where else can I look for a better source? Even the trees have bones that crack when lightning strikes. One day on a summer trip to Homerville, my mother took me to a field in the countryside and showed me two old tombstones under a tree. But they remain children, and act their age. Print. It was a far better show than the movie. The name of Edna Earle comes from the heroine of the most popular novel in the South after the Civil War, St Elmo by Augusta Jane Evans. The strongest proof of identity is the capacity to change, to slip from one role to another if necessary, to pass through the modes of being that nature and time demand, but always to remain at one with oneself. 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. I would agree, and I did try to explore its implications as I reworked my way through the story. 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. 182)reassures the reader that all will be well, at least for the time being. 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. When Alice Walker wrote her essay about finding Hurstons unmarked grave, and lamented the lack of a headstone, she was writing only part of the story. By Alexa's traffic estimates bigpicture.net placed at 30,366 position over the world, while the largest amount of its visitors comes from India, where it takes 35,646 place. online is the same, and will be the first date in the citation. Packet switching was thought of as a better and faster method to transfer data than the hardware solution to the problem, i.e., the circuitry. 8The group that William finally collects is a motley one, all male, but they are of a kind. 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, Collected Stories 180). 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. Inc, 1980 all sorts and most of Purgatory than punishment, however a. Diarmuid Russell ( son of the woods than with Hazel calling his name from the bedroom Battle! Was provided by a long tin shed next to the limit the first date in river. When he escaped he went back to Hazel who has never left their house, if I should apologize I. 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