We bought ice cream at the same shop even though there were white and colored water fountains outside on opposite sides of the shop. . There is Old Doc, the local wise man who owns the net. 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. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc, 1980. 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. I located myself in these pages and could go straight to the stories and pictures I loved (Welty. 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. He made a sign for me to follow him in what was now a blind tunnel steaming with sweat and humidity. It is then, after they've eaten, that they see a giant snake that they call the King of the Snakes. The Internet started off with research into what was then known as packet switching as early as the 1960s. This outlined the principal concepts and it defined . He walked on. William Wallace takes the lead back to Dover, and back to Hazel who has never left their house. They stamped the ground and pawed each other, more like horses than men. His name was Patrick Duval. Soon, people begin to ask if the fish are for sale, and William Wallace sells them. The memory is a living thingit too is in transit. 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. William 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. Furthermore, wide networks can successfully learn with a . There seemed to be a force in the family that drove it to act or speak out, with or without the common consensus. The Wide Net has been one of my favorite stories for at least forty years. Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston. The group that William finally collects is a motley one, all male, but they are of a kind. What impressed me most was the incongruity of seeing such a stark inscription on a Baptist tombstone. 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). The Wide Net has been one of my favorite stories for at least forty years. Trans. The strands are all there: to the memory nothing is ever really lost (Welty. 2On rereading the story I soon realized that my instincts had not failed me completely. 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. Phone orders: 1-800-964-5778 Request product #201055. They were later given to the University of Florida. 12Once William and Virgil have gathered everyone together, they take the wide net and all set out walking down the Old Natchez Trace. He had never been given much credit for his act, though in the recent biography of Hurston, by Valerie Boyd, written long after my visit home, he is singled out for praise (436). It was, however, filled with southerners. 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. 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. I saw it 26 years ago and I wish it was on tonight. But I learned too that the family prided itself on having been against slavery, and on having never owned a slave. 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. 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 town was a typical Florida collection of frame houses, shady streets, and sandy alleys held together by a compact center of brick banks, churches, cafes, shops, and one movie theater, on the western side of the river within walking distance of the ocean to the east. Physically, he was everything the legend had promised. As Welty adds in her autobiography, there were Edna Earles all over the South. 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. He could lift hundred-pound sacks of fertilizer with each hand. I had no memory that Welty had tried to dramatize or imply a single overreaching southern identity, cultural, historical, or otherwise. Both his grandfather and his father were struck by lightning. Print. We saw the same films at the same movie theater, even though the whites sat downstairs and the blacks up in the balcony. I could easily call to mind other memories that would deepen and darken the story. Later in the story a violent storm with a blast of wind covers the entire search party with wet leaves. 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. This is the truth that William Wallace discovers by himself, and somehow memory, lost and found, is crucial to the discovery. 18Since William Wallace cannot be contained in any single myth, or even in a multitude of myths, it should not have surprised me that he is able to exist untouched by history, or at least untouched by a southern identity usually defined and distinguished as being overwhelmed and overdetermined by history. Omissions? 1. 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. Think of another name in The Wide Net, Edna Earle. 29A few of these stories were comic, but most of them dwelled on hardship and tragedy. Now a host of biblical allusions begin to prevail over the Greek and Roman. Eudora Welty is a master of subjective impressionism, but there is not an escapist reflex in all her work. They all carried their classic illustrations. 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. online is the same, and will be the first date in the citation. 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. Perhaps nature itself, the mother of all myth, is the true heart of the story. William Wallace is beset on all sides by distractions, advice, omens, signs of all sorts. 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. The storm in The Wide Net seems bent more on celebration than punishment, however. 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. What touched me more, and what I remember best now, were the lives around me while growing up. . He goes inside and there is Hazel! 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. Just click the "Edit page" button at the bottom of the page or learn more in the Plot Summary submission guide. The web value rate of bigpicture.net is 49,209 USD. I began this paper with a confession. Robbie is right to be frightened. . 179). Marrs, Suzanne. 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, Collected Stories 172). . 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. County judges are elected, and he never lost an election because there was never any opposition. Me and Benz tight as a pair of shoes. The whole shed shook with laughter, given the reference to his feet, and from that day on I was home free and part of the gang. Still, as Old Doc exclaims to William: Everybody knows Pearl River is named the Pearl River (Welty, Collected Stories 176). 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. Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston. 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.. 180). Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 1990. The Pearl River is the prime example in The Wide Net and therefore the source of selfhood that will save William Wallace. 20Still, going back to William Wallace, I can hear someone somewhere asking about his name. Ben Forkner was a Professor of English at the University of Angers where he taught Southern and Irish literature, directed the English Department, and founded the Journal of the Short Story in English. At least the small boys have names that set them apart. 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. He was a black deputy who had saved Hurstons letters and manuscripts from a fire after her death. Though she is changing every day, she has really not changed at all. 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. Of course these signs and symbols enrich the story at the same time they divert William Wallace from his search. 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). 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. History Of The Internet. They all belong together in the Mississippi chorus line, until William Wallace finally breaks away on his own. We bought ice cream at the same shop even though there were white and colored water fountains outside on opposite sides of the shop. But the history of the South itself came to me mainly through the stories I heard in my family. 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 was a tall dignified man who dressed in a white suit and always had a Stetson hat on his head or in his hand. Print. It seemed odd to me too when I began thinking about the challenge of adding anything new to a debate that as we all know began long before the South became the South. Aeneas needs the golden bough to allow him to safely travel through the underworld to find his father. William Wallace will soon demonstrate a stronger will in a more heroic gesture than catching a rabbit. County judges are elected, and he never lost an election because there was never any opposition. 5I do not mean to suggest that I find anything of myself in William Wallace, nor in his search for Hazel. 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. Weltys mother refused to have a copy in her house. Robert Fitzgerald. Both his grandfather and his father were struck by lightning. No wonder Eudora Welty was ready to lash out if anyone else showed the same dimwittedness as the reviewer in Time Magazine. Like my grandfather, Beanie was color blind as far as race was concerned. 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 . This was not because it was dangerous, or unseemly; it was simply against the code. eNotes.com will help you with any book or any question. He goes with them to drag the river. HIGHLIGHTS who: February et al. 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). 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 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. 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. Geographically, I had lived outside as a boy in the steamy heat of southern Florida. 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. Robbie worries about lightning. 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. If there are two dates, the date of publication and appearance 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. In those days the post office had a small shop that sold tobacco and newspapers. He himself would have been too modest to mention it. Hazel wands were traditionally used as dowsing rods. 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. 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. No police, no first responders, no telephones, no helicopters just the local men and boys with an old fish net. . 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. [] Any day now the change will come. What I remember most about growing up was the joy of being outside for most of the day in a sort of tropical paradise. Subscribe. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Wide-Net-and-Other-Stories. 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. 171). I was not surprised he had been a good friend of Hurston, but I never found any reference to him in the standard biographies. the citation above will include either 2 or 3 dates. But during its moment, all that is remembered joins, and livesthe old and the young, the past and the present, the living and the dead (Welty, One Writers Beginnings 104). Perhaps nature itself, the mother of all myth, is the true heart of the story. So I grew up surrounded by southern voices. 181). 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. . After all, where else can I look for a better source? 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). Sunlight was scarce and each turn of the river took one deeper into a ripe darkness smelling of frog spawn and wild magnolia. I could easily call to mind other memories that would deepen and darken the story. This paper reviews the history, the goals, the organisation and the components of CSNET (the Computer Science Research Network). 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, Collected Stories 176). 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. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. 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. 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. I have talked about William Wallace and The Wide Net, but I have said little about the assigned subject, the myth of the South. There is one more story about my grandfather that I need to relate. 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. In fact, it is not a baptism at all. Even as I write, the memories come flooding, but two or three should be enough to make my case. He returns to his wife better capable of living a meaningful, fulfilling life. Download PDF More from Eudora Welty From the. It had blossomed overnight during the boom years of the twenties. The Wide Net and Other Stories deliberately refuses to shy away from vice, racism, pride, self-indulgence, and violence. 1 Robbie is right to be frightened. They were even stronger reasons to question the myths of the South I later encountered. 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. Are there many other collections of the time framed with a stronger cry against the harsh realities of human fate? Aeneas needs the golden bough to allow him to safely travel through the underworld to find his father. I loved the music, the food, the voices, the family stories, and to this day I cannot imagine life without them. Myth and meaning in that book are indivisible. A graduate of Stetson University in Florida, he received his M.A. He hated fighting, but he had never lost a fight, and all his rivals had given up trying. 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. 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). Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Sweet-gum red, hickory yellow, dogwood red, sycamore yellow. 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. publication in traditional print. 2023
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