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. Marrs, Suzanne. Though I have spent much of my professional life reading and thinking about southern identity and the historical versions of the Old and New South, I really did not encounter anything resembling a theory of the South as a land of myth and mythmaking before I began my graduate studies at Chapel Hill. 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. Apparently, there was one male survivor of the Battle of the Alamo in 1836. That was only part of the legend. This is the truth that William Wallace discovers by himself, and somehow memory, lost and found, is crucial to the discovery. If there are three dates, the first date is the date of the original He has proven his love to her by spending the whole day looking for her, and he has also bonded with his friends and other other men during the process. William goes out one night with two friends, gets drunk and lies all night in a ditch playing the harmonica. A graduate of Stetson University in Florida, he received his M.A. In the end, they seem happy and content again. 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. 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. in Marrs 70-71). The Malones are indistinguishable from each other, and so are the Doyles. Downtown black and white mingled and spoke with each other every day. 15The story ends with Hazel calling his name from the bedroom. 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. Sunlight was scarce and each turn of the river took one deeper into a ripe darkness smelling of frog spawn and wild magnolia. Myths are necessary to our lives and imagination, especially as children. But the shifting, or loss of identity, is a constant threat. CRM is one of the top technology investments that organizations can make. Summary of The Wide Net by Welty. The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty was published in 1980. Neither does Eudora Welty in her autobiography, and she is one of the most southern writers who ever existed. I located myself in these pages and could go straight to the stories and pictures I loved (Welty, One Writers Beginnings 8). It had blossomed overnight during the boom years of the twenties. No police, no first responders, no telephones, no helicopters just the local men and boys with an old fish net. I learned that several young ancestors had been killed fighting for the Confederacy or had died soon after the war from disease. 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. When later on I read Faulkners praise of natural courtesy I thought of Foots at once. The memory is a living thingit too is in transit. 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). William Wallace has done the real catching, unless of course, it has been Hazel herself. He was on a mission. The scenery the pace and the dialog are like a soothing low speed raft trip. 184). 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. 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). Myth and meaning in that book are indivisible. 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. As the men and boys work together to drag the river, they turn up a bunch of stuff: some fish, a great number of shoes, eels, alligators, and so on. Soon after his triumphant dive, William Wallace smiles for the first time, and falls asleep, but not for long. In The Wide Net there are too many myths to make a whole. If we must look for hidden meanings, perhaps the symbolical would be a better avenue to explore than the historical. The Collected Stories. 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). When he returned to his house, he found Hazel was not there, and she'd left a note saying that she had gone to drown herself in the river and that he'd be sorry for his behavior. 1. Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston. His name was Patrick Duval. Hazels name evokes the Celtic symbol of wisdom and the source of life hidden in underground water. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Wide-Net-and-Other-Stories. 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. Doc doesn't believe that Hazel would have drowned herself, but he lends the men the net just the same. Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Plot Summary of "The Wide Window" by Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler). Geographically, I had lived outside as a boy in the steamy heat of southern Florida. But they remain children, and act their age. Its a Mississippi backwoods flash mob and its just a heck of a lot of fun. I could easily call to mind other memories that would deepen and darken the story. The never forgetting is another gift of becoming oneself, the power of memory. They talked sometimes about a black giant named Foots. Here time, also, is subject to confluence. 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. Since 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. Jump-start your essay with our outlining tool to make sure you have all the main points of your essay covered. if there are three dates, the first date is the date of the original publication in traditional print. [] Magnolia and live-oak never die. But the history of the South itself came to me mainly through the stories I heard in my family. Think of another name in The Wide Net, Edna Earle. 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. . This was not because it was dangerous, or unseemly; it was simply against the code. 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. It runs in our family, Robbie says (Welty, Collected Stories 183).1 This is fatalism raised, or lowered, to farce, but points to a fear of being victimized by mysterious forces (without and within) that William Wallace himself must struggle against, and defeat. He loves to pontificate, and spends most of the day talking and giving advice. Print. Geographically, I had lived outside as a boy in the steamy heat of southern Florida. That was only part of the legend. The storm in The Wide Net seems bent more on celebration than punishment, however. 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. It was written forty years after The Wide Net but I was gratified to find her speak of myth and memory in a way that confirmed what I thought I had found in the story. 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. 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. Subscribe. 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. 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. Updates? eNotes.com will help you with any book or any question. Salesforce has a wide range of tools that can be integrated with it to boost productivity. 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). 45Of course writing her autobiography is a proof of that power, but Eudora Welty goes further. 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. Soon, people begin to ask if the fish are for sale, and William Wallace sells them. and I believe I could find stories, old ones & new ones, and beliefs and songs and violent events all over the place to show what the life here is, to my belief Think of all the people who would be in my bookwonderful Indians to start with, and the Indian tales are beautiful and dramatic and very touching some of themand Aaron Burr & Blennerhassett, and Lafayette, and Audubon, and Jefferson Davis, and the bandits and Lafitte the pirate, and all kinds of remarkable people. Perhaps nature itself, the mother of all myth, is the true heart of the story. What was missing in this southern town was southern history, or at least any striking display of history. HIGHLIGHTS who: February et al. 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