A man and a woman, unknown to each, but sharing the commonality of being from the North, meet in New Orleans and commence upon a strange tour that almost verges on the romantic, but gets only as far as one hesitant kiss. We bought ice cream at the same shop even though there were white and colored water fountains outside on opposite sides of the shop. "The Burning" digs so deep that it verges on becomingas exemplified hereone of the most ferocious of the very few examples of genuinely Expressionist literature by a famous American short story author. 171). In my town there were cattle ranches and orange groves to the west, and a small fleet of shrimping boats chugging back and forth on the Indian River to and from the Atlantic. He is holding fast to a little green ribbon of plant, root and all (Welty, Collected Stories 181). [] Old Jack Frost will be pinching things up. Us is the fishes (Welty, Collected Stories 183). Now us got scales, Sam cried out. 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. He no longer fears Hazels mother, and turns away without a flinch when she appears. 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. The black families had moved in the same direction to escape their hard lives as sharecroppers and a harsher form of racial discrimination. 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. It was perfect for riding out on the sand dunes at night, and for taking friends to the honky-tonks to hear one of our classmates wail out his versions of the old standards of Hank Williams and the brand new songs of Jerry Lee Lewis. They talked sometimes about a black giant named Foots. He possesses an old mans horde of lifelong certitudes. I think my grandfathers reputation helped me too in an experience that will stay with me as long as I live. William Wallace is beset on all sides by distractions, advice, omens, signs of all sorts. He took me in and introduced me to each worker by name. They were even stronger reasons to question the myths of the South I later encountered. I am ready to plead, however. Print. The Pearl River is the prime example in The Wide Net and therefore the source of selfhood that will save William Wallace. In those days the post office had a small shop that sold tobacco and newspapers. 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. But the real proof of his character came at noon, when we all stopped to have lunch. 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 walked through the streets of colored town as naturally as he walked to work. Remember that (Welty, Collected Stories 176). He was a big man, steady and straight despite his age, and must have been a formidable force in making an arrest. When was Delta Wedding set?? 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. The workers, all black men, would let us sit on the blocks of ice waiting to be crushed. The Pearl River is the prime example in The Wide Net and therefore the source of selfhood that will save William Wallace. , and of the river Lethe which the original Virgil tells us must be imbibed by dead souls in order for them to be reborn. 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. 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. 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). Print. , notably First Love, and A Still Moment, to name the most powerful. He did not smoke the cigar, he chewed it, and as a boy it was best to stay on his windward side. Of course the well-trained reader races through the possibilities and may stop on his way to consider the myth of the golden bough in the, . But the town itself was lively and busy and relatively sheltered from the poverty and misery that remained a plague throughout the greater South even in the 1950s. Now us got scales, Sam cried out. He is holding fast to a little green ribbon of plant, root and all (Welty. The roses needed a lot of water. Us is the fishes (Welty. The Golden Apples. As I have already mentioned, my grandfather lies at the heart of these memories. After politely answering my questions about the Hurston papers, he turned to me and spoke for a good thirty minutes about my grandfather. William Wallace is beset on all sides by distractions, advice, omens, signs of all sorts. 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). 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. 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. William Wallace will soon demonstrate a stronger will in a more heroic gesture than catching a rabbit. HIGHLIGHTS who: February et al. When he escaped he went back to his native state of Georgia and lived to a ripe old age. 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). The second half of the story is rich in events, but the outcome is never in doubt. Hazel is pregnant, and William is baffled by her changing attitude (she would not speak and her eyes glowed). I was not surprised he had been a good friend of Hurston, but I never found any reference to him in the standard biographies. Here is the same confused hodgepodge of myth and fable we can find in The Wide Net. They are the wonderful fictions out of which an adult life finally emerges, but never forgets. It is a plunge into the inner depths that strains every fibre of his being, and tests his spirit to the limit. Note: When citing an online source, it is important to include all necessary dates. 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. Backus, locally known as Beanie. In the end, they seem happy and content again. The Wide Net and Other Stories deliberately refuses to shy away from vice, racism, pride, self-indulgence, and violence. 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). Its going to turn from hot to cold, and we can kill the hog thats ripe and have fresh meat to eat. Physically, he was everything the legend had promised. What I remember most about growing up was the joy of being outside for most of the day in a sort of tropical paradise. William Wallace takes the lead back to Dover, and back to Hazel who has never left their house. [] Any day now the change will come. 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. After politely answering my questions about the Hurston papers, he turned to me and spoke for a good thirty minutes about my grandfather. Sweet-gum red, hickory yellow, dogwood red, sycamore yellow. Later on I was given an army jeep salvaged from the war. 29A few of these stories were comic, but most of them dwelled on hardship and tragedy. 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.. When we went to the movies on Saturday night, we would never hesitate to stop outside the county jail across the street from the Sunrise Theater. There is, however, a simpler explanation, of the South to be sure, but leaving the story still uncomplicated by history. 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. 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