Even though there is no southern history in the story, surely his name is steeped in historical associations. I realized that the origins of these myths had to be traced and analyzed, not least of all to better understand their impact on American culture and history. He no longer fears Hazels mother, and turns away without a flinch when she appears. When Virgil finds a string of beads in the river, he gives them to Sam and Robbie. 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 Wide Net and Other Stories. 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. He is more at ease with the helpless wild creature of the woods than with Hazel at home. This paper reviews the history, the goals, the organisation and the components of CSNET (the Computer Science Research Network). 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. Failed rebellions are choice makers of myths, as another failed rebellion was to prove a century later. He was a black deputy who had saved Hurstons letters and manuscripts from a fire after her death. So I grew up surrounded by southern voices. They created a protocol, HyperText Transfer Protocol ( HTTP ), which standardized communication between servers and clients. Robbie is right to be frightened. He towered over the others, who were all big and tough. 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. If all this seems too good to be true, its only because I choose to stop. The Internet started off with research into what was then known as packet switching as early as the 1960s. 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). This is the advantage of relying on memory rather than myth when digging back for the truth. There seemed to be a force in the family that drove it to act or speak out, with or without the common consensus. All of these stories were about life around the old family farms and houses back in Homerville, Georgia, not far from the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp. 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. The more common it is, however, the less likely it can be seized upon for special consideration. In The Wide Net there are too many myths to make a whole. 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. The Wide Net, short-story collection by Eudora Welty, published in 1943. 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. Of course these signs and symbols enrich the story at the same time they divert William Wallace from his search. As Welty adds in her autobiography, there were Edna Earles all over the South. 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. 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. 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. Marrs, Suzanne. 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. Engraved in large letters beneath the names was the single word: Murdered. These were the graves of her maternal grandparents who had been viciously axed to death by two men looking for easy prey and a few dollars. Each visitor makes around 4.39 page views on average. 27Even as I write, the memories come flooding, but two or three should be enough to make my case. Missisippi Delta in 1923. N 102 Library of America Series. 184). Hickory tree there will be yellow. 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. Robbie is right to be frightened. They are just playing out a role for the simple joy of pretending, and will soon return to themselves. Robbie worries about lightning. It was a far better show than the movie. The "Wide Residual Networks" paper linked makes a nice summary at the bottom of p8: . If all this seems too good to be true, its only because I choose to stop. He walked through the streets of colored town as naturally as he walked to work. The town was neatly divided into black and white neighborhoods, but my grandfathers house had been deliberately chosen because it was right on the border between the two and my cousins and I played and talked with black children every day. A graduate of Stetson University in Florida, he received his M.A. Then group returns to town, everyone carrying their heavy strings of fish. 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. , notably First Love, and A Still Moment, to name the most powerful. 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. The shifting from one realm to another is a constant possibility. Orlando: A Harvest Book, 2006. As far as living space was concerned, however, the town was strictly divided into white and black, and though the blacks were often seen in the white district, there were few whites who ventured into colored town. A few of these stories were comic, but most of them dwelled on hardship and tragedy. It is then, after they've eaten, that they see a giant snake that they call the King of the Snakes. 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. They have to go and get the wide net, though, and that belongs to a man called Doc. Published in ACM SIGCOMM 83. The human drama is my main concern, however, and the one day in the life of William Wallace, wild as it is, is much easier to summarize. The father of the white boys is rumored to have drowned in the Pearl River, and the father of the black boys had been struck by lightning and, as Robbie cries out during a storm, was dead three days, dead as that-there axe (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. They all belong together in the Mississippi chorus line, until William Wallace finally breaks away on his own. Delta Wedding in 1946. I learned that several young ancestors had been killed fighting for the Confederacy or had died soon after the war from disease. What interests me more as the years go on is the life story of the individual southerner. Weltys mother refused to have a copy in her house. Foots waited until they were all inside. Downtown black and white mingled and spoke with each other every day. 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. He possesses an old mans horde of lifelong certitudes. 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.". Lush, precise, and unpredictable in every line, The Wide Net is one of the greatest odes to the natural world ever written. 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. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). She continues several pages later: It is our inward journey that leads us through timeforward or back, seldom in a straight line, most often spiraling. Finding an Edna Earle in The Wide Net is like finding a magnolia tree in Mississippi, and should not force us to go back to. Seeing I was struggling with my bucket and shovel, he came right over and helped show me the right way to do it. It has been a delightful day of adventure on the river for the Malones, the Doyles, and the others (including the reader), but the wide net (a sort of local myth itself) has caught nothing, except a haul of fish, a big eel, old shoes, the baby alligator, and a string of beads. She is one of Hazels cousins. I say this because when The Wide Net and Other Stories came out as a single volume in 1943, Time Magazine 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 Time review but they say those things just because I happen to live in the southbut nobody else had better say I am unhuman (qtd. 17She also asks Russell: Do you think I dare to have honest-to-God people walking around in the stories? The Aeneid. The roses needed a lot of water. When William dives into the river, and emerges transformed, the myth-minded reader may then think once more of the. Other 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. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. 1. Usually there would be shade trees to stretch out under and cool off, but there were none here. He was the county judge, famous for his fairness in court, and loved by everyone who knew him, thus by the entire town. No police, no first responders, no telephones, no helicopters just the local men and boys with an old fish net. The wide net Adjust Share by Eudora Welty, This article is only available as a PDF to subscribers. 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 . 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. Still, as Old Doc exclaims to William: Everybody knows Pearl River is named the Pearl River (Welty. The human drama is my main concern, however, and the one day in the life of William Wallace, wild as it is, is much easier to summarize. Though she is changing every day, she has really not changed at all. 179). 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. His grandfather had been branded by the devil in a storm, Lightn. The workers filed in, one by one with their lunch bags, and sat down on a wooden bench. He has coedited (with Patrick Samway) four anthologies of Southern literature: Stories of the Modern South (Penguin), Stories of the Old South (Penguin), A Modern Southern Reader (Peachtree) and A New Reader of the Old South (Peachtree). He hated fighting, but he had never lost a fight, and all his rivals had given up trying. He could lift hundred-pound sacks of fertilizer with each hand. 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. I had not forgotten the references to history and to historical figures in some of the stories of. In many respects he cherished the community as much as his family, but it had to be the whole community, white and black. Its going to turn from hot to cold, and we can kill the hog thats ripe and have fresh meat to eat. 43When I finished rereading The Wide Net I reread Eudora Weltys autobiography, One Writers Beginnings. I had no memory that Welty had tried to dramatize or imply a single overreaching southern identity, cultural, historical, or otherwise. Boyd, Valerie. I do not mean to suggest that I find anything of myself in William Wallace, nor in his search for Hazel. The Wide Net and Other Stories (1943), The Golden Apples (1949), and The Bride of Innisfallen and Other Stories (1955) are collections of short stories, and The Eye of the Story (1978) is a volume of essays. He had nothing to gain, and everything to lose, by defying convention, but I do not think his prestige in the white community was ever at risk. On rereading the story I soon realized that my instincts had not failed me completely. review but they say those things just because I happen to live in the southbut nobody else had better say I am unhuman (qtd. 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. Engraved in large letters beneath the names was the single word: Murdered. These were the graves of her maternal grandparents who had been viciously axed to death by two men looking for easy prey and a few dollars. My mother had met her and gave me the names of several people who had been her friends. What was missing in this southern town was southern history, or at least any striking display of history. They were later given to the University of Florida. Now a host of biblical allusions begin to prevail over the Greek and Roman. The Pearl River is the prime example in The Wide Net and therefore the source of selfhood that will save William Wallace. Soon, a storm comes, and the lightning strikes trees around the group as they watchit is rather exhilarating. William Wallace takes the lead back to Dover, and back to Hazel who has never left their house. Myths are necessary to our lives and imagination, especially as children. The story works on several levels and gives the viewer no clue as to whether it should be taken seriously at all. This is the advantage of relying on memory rather than myth when digging back for the truth. 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. 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. As we discover, we remember; remembering, we discover; and most intensely do we experience this when our separate journeys converge (Welty. 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. 90). Ignorant as I was, I had no doubt I was southern, born and bred. 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. 26I am ready to plead, however. Even as I write, the memories come flooding, but two or three should be enough to make my case. 1 Robbie is right to be frightened. The grown-up Doyles and Malones are fixed in their undefined identities forever. 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,, (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. eNotes Editorial. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/jsse/1781. He took me in and introduced me to each worker by name. Given her love of Hurston, a spell had been cast, and the promise of a new myth stopped her in her tracks. 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. Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston. 2 Virgil of course is Dantes guide in The Divine Comedy through the Inferno and most of Purgatory. The only shade was provided by a long tin shed next to the sludge bin. In this respect, my grandfather was a rare exception. Foots waited until they were all inside. 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. Start your 48-hour free trial to get access to more than 30,000 additional guides and more than 350,000 Homework Help questions answered by our experts. 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. 182)reassures the reader that all will be well, at least for the time being. 1943. 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. 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. 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. 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). When he escaped he went back to his native state of Georgia and lived to a ripe old age. Foots was in charge. 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