They are just playing out a role for the simple joy of pretending, and will soon return to themselves. Jamieson takes a bit more twisting to unravel a historical connection. But they remain children, and act their age. 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. 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. Still, as Old Doc exclaims to William: Everybody knows Pearl River is named the Pearl River (Welty, Collected Stories 176). I do not mean to suggest that I find anything of myself in William Wallace, nor in his search for Hazel. Williams dive is not a baptism for the faint-hearted. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc, 1980. Nature is the wide-open playground of both good and evil, and it is best to be wary when the thunder roars. 41Just 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. , notably First Love, and A Still Moment, to name the most powerful. 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. The roses needed a lot of water. Robert Fitzgerald. 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. 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. I could easily call to mind other memories that would deepen and darken the story. He was on a mission. 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. Ben Forkner, Converging Toward the Human: Myth and Theory in "The Wide Net" (and me),Journal of the Short Story in English, 67|2016, 125-140. 183). But they remain children, and act their age. The Malones are indistinguishable from each other, and so are the Doyles. He walked through the streets of colored town as naturally as he walked to work. The thing about this part of the country in the great days is that people like Aaron Burr, J.J. Audubon, Lorenzo Dow, and goodness knows who, were as thick as blackbirds in the pie, and once the pie is opened, they are going to begin to sing (qtd. 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. Among everything else, he was generous almost to a fault. Hazel is pregnant, and William is baffled by her changing attitude (she would not speak and her eyes glowed). Get this from a library! 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. 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. 21His full name is William Wallace Jamieson. Sunlight was scarce and each turn of the river took one deeper into a ripe darkness smelling of frog spawn and wild magnolia. Old Mr. Winter will be standing in the door. Still, if I should apologize, I do. This blend of domestic realism with mythology and ancient fertility tales is characteristic of the entire collection, in which ordinary people are somehow connected to the myths of other cultures. It was told by Alexander Stephens, the vice-president of the Confederacy. 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. I think my grandfathers reputation helped me too in an experience that will stay with me as long as I live. 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. 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. They all belong together in the Mississippi chorus line, until William Wallace finally breaks away on his own. The workers filed in, one by one with their lunch bags, and sat down on a wooden bench. In The Wide Net, William Wallace must make his own way, and history, southern or otherwise, mythical or not, does not provide him (or the reader) with any guidelines. When later on I read Faulkners praise of natural courtesy I thought of Foots at once. County judges are elected, and he never lost an election because there was never any opposition. Now us got scales, Sam cried out. I met Foots the first day I was hired to work in a local fertilizer plant for the summer. Eudora Welty is a master of subjective impressionism, but there is not an escapist reflex in all her work. 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, Collected Stories 168). . 23Think of another name in The Wide Net, Edna Earle. Us is the fishes (Welty. Delta Wedding in 1946. Weltys mother refused to have a copy in her house. Geographically, I had lived outside as a boy in the steamy heat of southern Florida. Robert Fitzgerald. I said earlier that the town was segregated, but with little visible racial tension. publication in traditional print. New York: Signet Classics, 1961. He returns to his wife better capable of living a meaningful, fulfilling life. from the Chandigarh University, India have published the research: Genome-wide identi fi cation, expression pro ling, and functional analysis of ammonium transporter 2 (AMT2) gene family in cassava ( crantz), in the Journal: (JOURNAL) how: Showed that these three genes were upregulated in different degrees under the condition of ammonium Genome-wide identi . In those days the post office had a small shop that sold tobacco and newspapers. At this point the mythic and symbolic allusions begin to overwhelm, but I believe, as you know by now, that their very proliferation throws into high relief the singular nature of one mans all too human crisis. He lets the little infant plant fall free, and from now on the search is over. So I grew up surrounded by southern voices. 181). Trans. (qtd. 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. 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. The roses needed a lot of water. Whenever Walter Scott is mentioned in the context of the South, Mark Twains theory of the Civil War and the southern imagination immediately leaps to mind. 16What is missing in my account of rereading the story is my misremembering the total absence of southern history, a conspicuous absence. Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 1990. He could lift hundred-pound sacks of fertilizer with each hand. the second is . Jump-start your essay with our outlining tool to make sure you have all the main points of your essay covered. Even though there is no southern history in the story, surely his name is steeped in historical associations. 2023 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. In 1940 she had accepted the offer of Diarmuid Russell (son of the Irish poet George Russell) to be her agent. 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. I walked with him often on his way to his office in the courthouse down by the river. I learned that several young ancestors had been killed fighting for the Confederacy or had died soon after the war from disease. Brainstorm a list of topics for a podcast. 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. Apparently, there was one male survivor of the Battle of the Alamo in 1836. The white families, like my own, had migrated there from their farms in South Georgia in the hope of improving their prospects. Press in the Library of Southern Civilization series. He was a tall dignified man who dressed in a white suit and always had a Stetson hat on his head or in his hand. If there are two dates, the date of publication and appearance Other people join in too. When William dives into the river, and emerges transformed, the myth-minded reader may then think once more of the. 25I began this paper with a confession. The memory is a living thingit too is in transit. 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 . 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, Collected Stories 178). If we must look for hidden meanings, perhaps the symbolical would be a better avenue to explore than the historical. Once William and Virgil have gathered everyone together, they take the wide net and all set out walking down the Old Natchez Trace. I learned my grandfather had been instrumental in having him named the first black deputy in the county. The story recounts how Sister, the intelligent and ironic narrator, comes to fall out with her family over incidents arising from her younger sister Stella-Rondo's sudden reappearance in their small southern town, minus her husband and with a two-year-old "adopted" child in tow. He has recovered his memory too, and with it, we know now, a new power of self-direction, decision, and acceptance. 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). 13There is certainly no question that Williams dive to the bottom of the river brings him up a new man. LCRI Net-Zero 2050: U.S. Economy-Wide Deep Decarbonization Scenario Analysis # Executive Summary As part of the Low-Carbon Resources Initiative open in new window (LCRI), EPRI and GTI Energy led an integrated energy system scenario modeling exercise to evaluate alternative technology strategies for achieving economy-wide net-zero emissions of carbon dioxide (CO 2) in the United States by 2050. Print. Faced with the most serious crisis of his young life, William at least has the resourcefulness to ask help from one of his friends from the night out, Virgil Thomas, and they set out to borrow the wide net from Old Doc, and to gather other members of the community to help drag the river. Old Doc reminds me of the old men in another great modern folk story, The Weavers Grave, by the Irish writer Seumas OKelly. The wide net. She could have easily searched out one of the old Backus crowd willing to share the memory of Beanies role in the funeral and the missing headstone. The memory is a living thingit too is in transit. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/jsse/1781. We may remember his prayer: If only the golden bough/Might shine for us in such a wilderness! (Vergil 166). Later on I was given an army jeep salvaged from the war. The only shade was provided by a long tin shed next to the sludge bin. Boys, he said, I didnt run, but I did some mighty high walking. I hope I have not run away from the myth of the South, but I admit I may have done some high walking. Thank you for the indulgence, and the invitation. No wonder Eudora Welty was ready to lash out if anyone else showed the same dimwittedness as the reviewer in. 26I am ready to plead, however. 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). And the final story in The Wide Net (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. This paper reviews the history, the goals, the organisation and the components of CSNET (the Computer Science Research Network). In many respects he cherished the community as much as his family, but it had to be the whole community, white and black. But I could not remember that it had revealed the slightest interest in the South as a subject of focus or reflection. HIGHLIGHTS who: February et al. Though she is changing every day, she has really not changed at all. Print. The second half of the story is rich in events, but the outcome is never in doubt. It is a plunge into the inner depths that strains every fibre of his being, and tests his spirit to the limit. Hazel is pregnant, and William is baffled by her changing attitude (she would not speak and her eyes glowed). In the afternoons my friends and I would go down to the icehouse where sacks of ice were filled for the professional fishing boats. 38I do not want to leave the impression that my grandfather was in any sense a rebel or an outsider. He made a sign for me to follow him in what was now a blind tunnel steaming with sweat and humidity. 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. Mendelian randomization (MR) harnesses genetic variants as instrumental variables (IVs) to study the causal effect of exposure on outcome using summary statistics from genome-wide association studies. A few of these stories were comic, but most of them dwelled on hardship and tragedy. Once again, however, we cannot escape the fact that names are chosen for us. 180). The development of the World Wide Web was begun in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee and his colleagues at CERN, an international scientific organization based in Geneva, Switzerland. It will not be lost on the reader that the structure of The Wide Net roughly follows the same literary source, proceeding from hell, to purgatory, and finally to paradise. I would agree, and I did try to explore its implications as I reworked my way through the story. History Of The Internet. 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. 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. Old Doc reminds me of the old men in another great modern folk story, The Weavers Grave, by the Irish writer Seumas OKelly. In the afternoons my friends and I would go down to the icehouse where sacks of ice were filled for the professional fishing boats. Old Doc lives on a hill and can usually be found in his rocking chair. The workers, all black men, would let us sit on the blocks of ice waiting to be crushed. Each of us is moving, changing, with respect to others. She ends One Writers Beginnings 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 has recovered his memory too, and with it, we know now, a new power of self-direction, decision, and acceptance. 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. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Usually there would be shade trees to stretch out under and cool off, but there were none here. Grady is already a sort of father to Brucie. He took me in and introduced me to each worker by name. The wide net Adjust Share by Eudora Welty, This article is only available as a PDF to subscribers. Like my grandfather, Beanie was color blind as far as race was concerned. What was missing in this southern town was southern history, or at least any striking display of history. Word Count: 385. Its a Mississippi backwoods flash mob and its just a heck of a lot of fun. At this point the mythic and symbolic allusions begin to overwhelm, but I believe, as you know by now, that their very proliferation throws into high relief the singular nature of one mans all too human crisis. Walking down Orange Avenue he stopped in each of the three barber shops to tip his hat and say hello, and then picked up his daily cigar at the post office. Lush, precise, and unpredictable in every line, The Wide Net is one of the greatest odes to the natural world ever written. After all, there were some brilliant minds at work on the subject, minds who could spot a stereotype or a caricature a hundred miles away, and there was much to learn. 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. William goes out one night with two friends, gets drunk and lies all night in a ditch playing the harmonica. His edition of Alexander Stephens prison diary, Recollections of Alexander H. Stephens, was published by L.S.U. At least the small boys have names that set them apart. I should make it clear it was not the quality of the scholarship in what I read that puzzled me, but my consternation in not finding anything of my own life in the popular myths contained in the books. He was a big man, steady and straight despite his age, and must have been a formidable force in making an arrest. Myth and meaning in that book are indivisible. 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. Aeneas needs the golden bough to allow him to safely travel through the underworld to find his father. I saw it 26 years ago and I wish it was on tonight. The Wide Net has been one of my favorite stories for at least forty years. Vergil. 17She also asks Russell: Do you think I dare to have honest-to-God people walking around in the stories? 9Other than Old Doc, the characters making up the search party include two sets of young brothers, the white boys, Brucie and Grady Rippin, and the black boys, Sam and Robbie Bell. William Wallace has done the real catching, unless of course, it has been Hazel herself. When William Wallace gets home, he notices a night rainbow over his house, though it clearly hadn't rained there. In The Wide Net, William Wallace must make his own way, and history, southern or otherwise, mythical or not, does not provide him (or the reader) with any guidelines. 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. Synopsis It looks like we don't have a Synopsis for this title yet. The narration speculates on what he experiences in the solitude of the river bottom: So far down and all alone, had he found Hazel? Filled for the faint-hearted we can not escape the fact that names are chosen for us Beanie color! 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