CSNET bridged between the original (closed) ARPANET and the NSFNET (open) by . In keeping with the Scottish link, it might be reversed to be read the son of James. Like my grandfather, Beanie was color blind as far as race was concerned. He was on a mission. The second date is today's Jamieson takes a bit more twisting to unravel a historical connection. The Wide Net and Other Stories deliberately refuses to shy away from vice, racism, pride, self-indulgence, and violence. Failed rebellions are choice makers of myths, as another failed rebellion was to prove a century later. 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. William Wallace takes the lead back to Dover, and back to Hazel who has never left their house. 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. My mother had met her and gave me the names of several people who had been her friends. In many respects he cherished the community as much as his family, but it had to be the whole community, white and black. In many respects he cherished the community as much as his family, but it had to be the whole community, white and black. A graduate of Stetson University in Florida, he received his M.A. I do not mean to suggest that I find anything of myself in William Wallace, nor in his search for 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.2 If we must look for hidden meanings, perhaps the symbolical would be a better avenue to explore than the historical. 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. 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. Given her love of Hurston, a spell had been cast, and the promise of a new myth stopped her in her tracks. I wanted to talk to him, so my mother invited him over to the house. But the real proof of his character came at noon, when we all stopped to have lunch. When Virgil finds a string of beads in the river, he gives them to Sam and Robbie. 37Beanie deserves his own story. 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. 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. 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. 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. No wonder Eudora Welty was ready to lash out if anyone else showed the same dimwittedness as the reviewer in. As Welty adds in her autobiography, there were Edna Earles all over the South. 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. 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). I said earlier that the town was segregated, but with little visible racial tension. Furthermore, wide networks can successfully learn with a . Print. The white families, like my own, had migrated there from their farms in South Georgia in the hope of improving their prospects. Doc doesn't believe that Hazel would have drowned herself, but he lends the men the net just the same. 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. When William Wallace gets home, he notices a night rainbow over his house, though it clearly hadn't rained there. Omissions? 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. Still, as Old Doc exclaims to William: Everybody knows Pearl River is named the Pearl River (Welty. 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. Last Updated on June 19, 2019, by eNotes Editorial. Vergil. County judges are elected, and he never lost an election because there was never any opposition. 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. 2023 . They all belong together in the Mississippi chorus line, until William Wallace finally breaks away on his own. The Wide Net Episode aired Feb 2, 1987 55 m IMDb RATING 8.6 /10 14 YOUR RATING Rate Comedy Drama Romance Add a plot in your language Director Anthony Herrera Writers Anthony Herrera Eudora Welty (story) Stars Elnora Chapman Boyce Holleman Tim Ransom See production, box office & company info Add to Watchlist 3 User reviews Photos Add photo Top cast 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.. 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. 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. 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.. These were some of the memories humming in my head when I began reading the books about Southern myth in Chapel Hill. 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. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/jsse/1781. But the shifting, or loss of identity, is a constant threat. Walker Percy has written somewhere that a boy who has a Hamilton from his grandfather is a true son of the South, and I still have mine. There I was shocked to learn I may have been born into a myth, despite myself. 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. Missisippi Delta in 1923. 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. But these Georgia tales were of the kind that Eudora Welty describes as old and complete in Asphodel, one of the short stories in. Timeless stories from our 172-year archive handpicked to speak to the news of the day. He did not smoke the cigar, he chewed it, and as a boy it was best to stay on his windward side. He walked on. 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). Old Doc reminds me of the old men in another great modern folk story, The Weavers Grave, by the Irish writer Seumas OKelly. The second is the date of I think my grandfathers reputation helped me too in an experience that will stay with me as long as I live. As I have already mentioned, my grandfather lies at the heart of these memories. When I finished rereading The Wide Net I reread Eudora Weltys autobiography, . [] Old Jack Frost will be pinching things up. 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. , notably First Love, and A Still Moment, to name the most powerful. 180). He is more at ease with the helpless wild creature of the woods than with Hazel at home. 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. 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. 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 . He walked on. Subscribe. 182)reassures the reader that all will be well, at least for the time being. There seemed to be a force in the family that drove it to act or speak out, with or without the common consensus. To me, there is more irony than history in the name William Wallace. . This is the advantage of relying on memory rather than myth when digging back for the truth. 31He was the county judge, famous for his fairness in court, and loved by everyone who knew him, thus by the entire town. The Wide Net, short-story collection by Eudora Welty, published in 1943. 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. 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. 178). 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. There is Old Doc, the local wise man who owns the net. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. I am ready to plead, however. In 1940 she had accepted the offer of Diarmuid Russell (son of the Irish poet George Russell) to be her agent. The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child. 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). 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.". Failed rebellions are choice makers of myths, as another failed rebellion was to prove a century later. I learned that several young ancestors had been killed fighting for the Confederacy or had died soon after the war from disease. Sir Walter Scott celebrated both William Wallace and Bonnie Prince Charles, the latter in the most popular series of historical novels ever written, the Waverly novels. . Grady is already a sort of father to Brucie. Apparently, there was one male survivor of the Battle of the Alamo in 1836. A few of these stories were comic, but most of them dwelled on hardship and tragedy. So I grew up surrounded by southern voices. 2023 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 102). Lush, precise, and unpredictable in every line, The Wide Net is one of the greatest odes to the natural world ever written. There is no great central Southern myth in The Wide Net. But I must have half-remembered that the potency of the mythic, including a few old southern folktales or legends, does play a key role in the story, especially by pounding the pedal throughout on the truth that no myth, potent or not, can ever measure up to one mans solitary predicament. 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. 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. Sometimes referred to as a "network of networks," the Internet emerged in the United States in the 1970s but did not become visible to the general public until the early 1990s. 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). Are there many other collections of the time framed with a stronger cry against the harsh realities of human fate? Updates? Eudora Welty: A Biography. The Wide Net has been one of my favorite stories for at least forty years. Us is the fishes (Welty. In the afternoons my friends and I would go down to the icehouse where sacks of ice were filled for the professional fishing boats. note:when citing an online source, it is important to include all necessary dates. 45Of course writing her autobiography is a proof of that power, but Eudora Welty goes further. But Hazel is no rabbit as Virgil makes clear: Anybody can freeze a. , 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. The more common it is, however, the less likely it can be seized upon for special consideration. This is the truth that William Wallace discovers by himself, and somehow memory, lost and found, is crucial to the discovery. I learned my grandfather had been instrumental in having him named the first black deputy in the county. I benefited from these books as much as anyone. 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). 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). 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 workers filed in, one by one with their lunch bags, and sat down on a wooden bench. In those days the post office had a small shop that sold tobacco and newspapers. 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. In The Wide Net there are too many myths to make a whole. Geographically, I had lived outside as a boy in the steamy heat of southern Florida. Even though there is no southern history in the story, surely his name is steeped in historical associations. He has recovered his memory too, and with it, we know now, a new power of self-direction, decision, and acceptance. Sunlight was scarce and each turn of the river took one deeper into a ripe darkness smelling of frog spawn and wild magnolia. When later on I read Faulkners praise of natural courtesy I thought of Foots at once. He had earned the name by winning a juke joint contest for having the biggest feet in Florida. 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. Forkner has also published three books on John James Audubon: Journals and Selected Writings in the Penguin Nature Classics series, with an introduction and editorial commentary; and two in Europe: the two-volume Journaux et Rcits (Atalante and the City of Nantes), a comprehensive collection of Audubons writings in French, newly translated, with a full biographical introduction and editorial commentary, and the John James Audubon Portfolio (Edition de la Main Fleurie) which includes an introduction, a selection of Audubons letters, and forty-eight reproductions of Audubons original watercolors printed on hand-made paper designed to replicate the paper used in the early nineteenth century. Hazels name evokes the Celtic symbol of wisdom and the source of life hidden in underground water. And finally, on the last page, memory is evoked again, this time in words to be engraved in stone: Of course the greatest confluence of all is that which makes up the human memorythe individual human memory. Our summaries and analyses are written by experts, and your questions are answered by real teachers. 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. 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. He towered over the others, who were all big and tough. . 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. He was a big man, steady and straight despite his age, and must have been a formidable force in making an arrest. 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. online is the same, and will be the first date in the citation. 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. 181). Williams dive is not a baptism for the faint-hearted. Once again, however, we cannot escape the fact that names are chosen for us. Marrs, Suzanne. We may remember his prayer: If only the golden bough/Might shine for us in such a wilderness! (Vergil, 166). See production, box office & company info. Word Count: 385. Hazels name evokes the Celtic symbol of wisdom and the source of life hidden in underground water. Grady is already a sort of father to Brucie. 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, however, filled with southerners. As we discover, we remember; remembering, we discover; and most intensely do we experience this when our separate journeys converge (Welty. Town was segregated, but most of them dwelled on hardship and tragedy sold! Migrated there from their farms in South Georgia in the Mississippi chorus line, until William Wallace gets,... Russell ) to be her agent my favorite stories for at least for the time being gets! Myth when digging back for the time framed with a NSFNET ( open ) by ( son the! 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