After all, where else can I look for a better source? He towered over the others, who were all big and tough. 19Her reaction is more than understandable. 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. 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. After all, where else can I look for a better source? Print. 45Of course writing her autobiography is a proof of that power, but Eudora Welty goes further. 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. 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. Think of another name in The Wide Net, Edna Earle. The only shade was provided by a long tin shed next to the sludge bin. Myths are necessary to our lives and imagination, especially as children. Summary of The Wide Net by Welty. His edition of Alexander Stephens prison diary, Recollections of Alexander H. Stephens, was published by L.S.U. The roses needed a lot of water. 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. 183). enotes editorial.vsenotes.com20 jan. 2023 . I learned that several young ancestors had been killed fighting for the Confederacy or had died soon after the war from disease. Trans. I met Foots the first day I was hired to work in a local fertilizer plant for the summer. 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. What was her first novel and when was it published? They were even stronger reasons to question the myths of the South I later encountered. But the history of the South itself came to me mainly through the stories I heard in my family. 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. . 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. Ben and his brothers continue their voyage while developing different theories about . 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. 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. 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. 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. I could easily call to mind other memories that would deepen and darken the story. We may remember his prayer: If only the golden bough/Might shine for us in such a wilderness! (Vergil, 166). 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, Collected Stories 188). The Wide Net and Other Stories. Sweet-gum red, hickory yellow, dogwood red, sycamore yellow. It was a far better show than the movie. 25I began this paper with a confession. William Wallace keeps diving down to search for Hazel until, finally, the group decides to stop and cook some of the fish they've got for a meal. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. He lets the little infant plant fall free, and from now on the search is over. New York: Signet Classics, 1961. The strands are all there: to the memory nothing is ever really lost (Welty. Downtown black and white mingled and spoke with each other every day. I did recall that it had fascinated (and puzzled) me by mixing together a multitude of myths and legends, reaching far and wide in time and in place, including the local and the regional. 2023 . 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. 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. The roses needed a lot of water. I grew up during segregation, but the racism was subdued, and codified down to a syllable and a glance. 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. 17She also asks Russell: Do you think I dare to have honest-to-God people walking around in the stories? Her reaction is more than understandable. We saw the same films at the same movie theater, even though the whites sat downstairs and the blacks up in the balcony. 183). The only shade was provided by a long tin shed next to the sludge bin. 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. 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). . Weltys mother refused to have a copy in her house. [] Any day now the change will come. Later in the story a violent storm with a blast of wind covers the entire search party with wet leaves. Knowing Eudora Weltys love of Ireland and the Irish, the echo is surely deliberate. The wide net Adjust Share by Eudora Welty, This article is only available as a PDF to subscribers. William goes to get his friend, Virgil, with whom he'd spent the night carousing, and the pair of them round up some neighborhood men to drag the river. Of course these signs and symbols enrich the story at the same time they divert William Wallace from his search. Though she is changing every day, she has really not changed at all. When I finished rereading The Wide Net I reread Eudora Weltys autobiography, . Salesforce has a wide range of tools that can be integrated with it to boost productivity. 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. 12Once William and Virgil have gathered everyone together, they take the wide net and all set out walking down the Old Natchez Trace. eNotes Editorial. In Life on the Mississippi, one of Eudora Weltys favorite books, Twain makes the outrageous, though irresistible, claim that Scott and his historical romances helped cause the Civil War by promoting a mythical vision of history, and by shaping the southern character: It was Sir Walter Scott that made every gentleman in the South a Major or Colonel, or a General or a Judge, before the war; and it was he, also, that made these gentlemen value these bogus decorations Sir Walter Scott had so large a hand in making the southern character, as it existed before the war, that he is in great measure responsible (266). Print. The white families, like my own, had migrated there from their farms in South Georgia in the hope of improving their prospects. The Chamber also achieved 4-star accreditation in 2018, an honor achieved by only 204 of the 7,022 chambers in the country. The group that William finally collects is a motley one, all male, but they are of a kind. The workers filed in, one by one with their lunch bags, and sat down on a wooden bench. 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. There I was shocked to learn I may have been born into a myth, despite myself. But I learned too that the family prided itself on having been against slavery, and on having never owned a slave. And we fished for the same fish from the same piers in the inlet. 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). 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. Still, going back to William Wallace, I can hear someone somewhere asking about his name. The last date is today's I learned my grandfather had been instrumental in having him named the first black deputy in the county. Among everything else, he was generous almost to a fault. "The Wide Net - Quotes" eNotes Publishing Ed. Old Mr. Winter will be standing in the door. The Internet started off with research into what was then known as packet switching as early as the 1960s. Foots was in charge. 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. Remember that (Welty, Collected Stories 176). I have talked about William Wallace and The Wide Net, but I have said little about the assigned subject, the myth of the South. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. So I grew up surrounded by southern voices. Robert Fitzgerald. 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. The one I want to tell about my grandfather concerns another man involved in the Zora Neale Hurston saga. Nature is the wide-open playground of both good and evil, and it is best to be wary when the thunder roars. 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. 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. [Anthony Herrera; Rachel McPherson; Marcus Viscidi; Kyra Sedgwick; Barry Tubb; Tim Ransom; M Josef Sommer; Glen Roven; Eudora Welty;] -- Set in rural Mississippi, the story focuses on the turbulent relationship of a young married couple, William Wallace and his wife Hazel, in the American South in 1933. Still, if I should apologize, I do. publication online or last modification online. At least the small boys have names that set them apart. It did not cost much to have a horse and a small motor boat. Neither does Eudora Welty in her autobiography, and she is one of the most southern writers who ever existed. He was a big man, steady and straight despite his age, and must have been a formidable force in making an arrest. 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. 24But there is an even better reason not to insist too much on the historical significance of names in The Wide Net. Names are chosen for us, not the other way around, and The Wide Net insists upon individual choice as the primary measure of character. Its going to turn from hot to cold, and we can kill the hog thats ripe and have fresh meat to eat. I learned my grandfather had been instrumental in having him named the first black deputy in the county. Ben Forkner, Converging Toward the Human: Myth and Theory in "The Wide Net" (and me),Journal of the Short Story in English [En ligne], 67|Autumn 2016, mis en ligne le 01 dcembre 2018, consult le 02 mars 2023. When Virgil finds a string of beads in the river, he gives them to Sam and Robbie. Weltys mother refused to have a copy in her house. 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. date the date you are citing the material. Vergil. Phone orders: 1-800-964-5778 Request product #201055. Boyd, Valerie. She begins by describing a milestone in her childhood, a gift of the ten-volume, 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. Each of us is moving, changing, with respect to others. Since in the South, as I had finally learned in Chapel Hill, history tends to breed myth as a kind of natural law, I needed at least to consider the question. 26I am ready to plead, however. But the real proof of his character came at noon, when we all stopped to have lunch. 1 Mar. The citation above will include either 2 or 3 dates. The shifting from one realm to another is a constant possibility. William goes out one night with two friends, gets drunk and lies all night in a ditch playing the harmonica. At the beginning of the story William Wallace catches a small rabbit and acts as if he wanted to take it off to himself and hold it up and talk to it (Welty, 172). In those days the post office had a small shop that sold tobacco and newspapers. 31He was the county judge, famous for his fairness in court, and loved by everyone who knew him, thus by the entire town. But I digress, drifting with the memory. originally published: New York : Harcourt Brace and Company 1943 We offered this copy of the first edition in our Catalog 119. reference info. 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. 179). 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. 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. Myth and meaning in that book are indivisible. 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.
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