The Wide Net by Eudora Welty
"The Wide Net" by Eudora Welty is a poignant exploration of love, loss, and the complexities of personal relationships, framed within a Southern Gothic narrative. The story centers on Hazel Jamieson, who, three months pregnant, withdraws emotionally from her husband, William Wallace. After her shocking decision to drown herself in the Pearl River, William Wallace and his friend Virgil set out to search for her using a wide net, symbolizing both the physical act of searching and the deeper quest to understand Hazel's inner turmoil.
As they embark on this ritualistic search during the vernal equinox, the narrative delves into themes of change, mystery, and the inadequacies of communication in relationships. The river, described as familiar yet enigmatic, serves as a metaphor for Hazel’s character and the hidden depths of human experience. The story juxtaposes the male characters' attempts to navigate their feelings and the feminine mystery embodied by Hazel, culminating in a reflection on the nature of love, autonomy, and the human condition. Ultimately, Welty suggests that while some aspects of a person may remain elusive, the search for understanding is an essential part of love and connection.
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The Wide Net by Eudora Welty
First published: 1942
Type of plot: Psychological
Time of work: The early twentieth century
Locale: Dover, Mississippi, on the Natchez Trace
Principal Characters:
William Wallace Jamieson , a recently married farmerHazel Jamieson , his pregnant wifeVirgil Thomas , William Wallace's bachelor friend and neighbor
The Story
As the vernal equinox approaches, Hazel Jamieson, three months pregnant, refuses sexual relations with her husband, William Wallace Jamieson. Mystified and hurt by this rejection, William Wallace spends a night out, drinking with his bachelor friend Virgil Thomas. On returning home in the morning, he finds a note from Hazel announcing that she will not put up with him any longer and has drowned herself in the Pearl River. William Wallace and Virgil then organize a party to drag the river for her, using the wide net that belongs to the local patriarch, Old Doc. The scholarly Doc questions the pair closely to be sure that they have a good reason for using the net, because William Wallace has used it within the last month, and it is not his turn. When Doc believes it possible that Hazel may have drowned herself, he reflects that "Lady Hazel is the prettiest girl in Mississippi . . . A golden-haired girl." He decides to join the search.
As the search gets under way, it takes on a mystical, ritual quality. Doc observes that this is the equinox, the time of change from fall to winter, when all of creation seems made of gold. William Wallace responds by thinking of Hazel as "like a piece of pure gold, too precious to touch," then asks, mysteriously, for the name of the river they all know so well. Like Hazel, the river, though familiar, becomes mysterious, "almost as if it were a river in some dream." William Wallace's search of the river becomes a metaphor for his attempt to fathom the mysterious depths of Hazel's character.
Other ritual elements include the two black boys who push Doc in an oarless boat, the mysterious objects dredged up from the bottom, Virgil's refusal to allow strangers to watch them, William Wallace's deep dives, the fish feast, William Wallace's phallic dance with a catfish attached to his belt buckle, and their subsequent "vision" of "The King of Snakes," a large water snake that seems to be evoked by William Wallace's dance. The search ends just in time for a violent thunderstorm, which transforms the benign golden landscape temporarily into a terrifying, agitated silver landscape.
Of these ritual elements, William Wallace's deepest dive seems especially significant: He dives below the normal muddy world of the river into the "dark clear world of deepness." The narrator asks whether he found Hazel in this deepness: "Had he suspected down there, like some secret the real the true trouble that Hazel had fallen into, about which words in a letter could not speak . . . how (who knew?) she had been filled to the brim with that elation that comes of great hopes and changes . . . that comes with a little course of its own like a tune to run in the head, and there was nothing she could do about it—they knew—and so it had turned to this?" Diving deep into the river, William Wallace might also dive deep into Hazel, there to confront the same mystery that lies at his own center—"the old trouble" that all people share but that they cannot articulate. Newly married Hazel, confronting the changes of marriage, of the season, of motherhood, is shown at the beginning of the story as inarticulate but filled to the brim with golden life: "When he came in the room she would not speak to him, but would look as straight at nothing as she could, with her eyes glowing." Her mystery is like the fish of the Pearl River, infinite and familiar at the same time.
When the quest is finished, Old Doc reflects that he has never been on a better river dragging: "If it took catfish to move the Rock of Gibralter, I believe this outfit could move it." Virgil replies that they did not catch Hazel,but Doc replies in turn that girls are not caught as fish are; they are more mysterious. William Wallace returns home to find a moon-made rainbow over his house and Hazel waiting for him. He tries to assert control over her, to prevent her behaving so whimsically again, but she evades him, asserting that her self belongs to her. He feels again the elation he felt on winning her consent to marry, feeling in her loving assertion of selfhood the mystery of self that is at the center of their love and union as well as of their separation and sorrow.
Bibliography
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