The Wide Net (1942). Content and Description

When William Wallace Jamieson’s new wife, Hazel, becomes pregnant, she begins to ignore him and focus on her own condition; in response, he decides to spend a night out with his male friends, drinking, singing, and otherwise enjoying themselves. When he returns home, however, he finds an empty house and a note from Hazel in which she announces her intention to drown herself in the local river—a threat that causes her husband to round up practically all the male neighbors to help him drag the river for her body. After a long and sometimes even festive communal effort to find and recover Hazel’s corpse, the young husband returns home, only to discover Hazel waiting for him in a spirit of reconciliation but also of subtle dominance.

Some readers of this story, noting that William Wallace is accompanied on his journey/quest by a best friend named Virgil, have compared the tale both to the epic poem The Aeneid (by the Roman poet Virgil) and—with more obvious relevance—to Dante’s epic The Divine Comedy (Pingatore 196). In the latter poem (which consists, as does Welty’s story, of three major sections), the speaker first finds himself at a loss; then, assisted by a companion named Virgil, he engages in a long and arduous journey; finally, he attains a vision of happiness that involves a beautiful young woman.

Although it would be foolish to push these parallels too far, certain basic similarities between “The Wide Net” and The Divine Comedy do seem to exist, and Welty’s subtle use of literary echoes and allusions is indeed typical of her work in general. Welty’s own reading was both wide and deep, but she wears her learning lightly, keeping her focus squarely (and, for the most part, convincingly) on her immediate Mississippi setting even when she may be playing variations on Dante at some deeper level of design.

The “wide net” of Welty’s title refers to the literal net used to drag the river, but it also alludes, more broadly, to the wide range of people who join William Wallace in his quest. In few other of her most famous stories does Welty offer such a comprehensive picture of a broad local community: Her own “wide net” takes in a diverse range of character types, from the wise old man named Doc (who owns the net and who comments sagely, if somewhat pompously, on the communal quest), to the “gator-rass’lin’” Malone clan, to two young black boys named Robbie Bell and Sam (to mention just a few).

Here, as in so many of her other works, Welty uses all the resources of the local color tradition (including eccentric characters, odd customs, peculiar dialect, unusual habits of thought and behavior, and an exotic locale) to create a vision of an unfamiliar but highly textured way of life. However, at the same time as she presents a world that will inevitably seem distant from the lives of most readers, Welty also deals with some of the most common of all human experiences, such as the complicated relations between husbands and wives, the changes wrought in a marriage by the advent of pregnancy, the importance of connections between the individual self and the larger community, and the age-old battle of the sexes.

That battle ends (in this story, at least) in an intriguing draw, with perhaps the woman positioned slightly on top. On the one hand, William Wallace does ultimately give Hazel (in a scene that will make feminists cringe) a mild spanking (preceded by what the narrator calls “a little tap and slap” [226]). On the other hand, the story ends with Hazel’s asserting (without William’s objection) her right to misbehave in the future, and the very last words of the tale describe her leading him “into the house, smiling as if she were smiling down on him” (227).

If the ending of the story is comic, it is comic in a way that seems to affirm a certain degree of feminine power. As in most comedies, the story seems to celebrate both the spirit of community and the union of the sexes; it shows humans achieving a kind of balance not only with a sometimes-threatening nature but also with the self.

For Discussion or Writing:
1. In “The Wide Net,” the main character gathers an ever-growing group of friends and community members who come to his assistance. How does this pattern reverse the basic narrative pattern underlying Welty’s story “Why I Live at the P.O.”? How does the gender of the main characters in each story affect their experiences? How does Welty complicate the tone of each work, darkening the obviously comic story and lightening the story that seems potentially tragic?

2. Compare and contrast “The Wide Net” with Jack London’s story “To Build a Fire.” In particular, discuss such matters as setting, isolation versus community, the wisdom of elderly people, and the differences of final tone. How and why is one story comic and the other tragic? How is each story typical of the works of the author who wrote it?

3. Is “The Wide Net” a credible, plausible work of fiction? Are there any respects in which it seems contrived or unconvincing? Do people actually behave as Welty’s characters do? How does Welty strive to make her characters and their actions convincing? How and why does she succeed? Are there any respects in which she fails? Is the story meant to be convincingly realistic, or is it meant to be primarily symbolic? Justify your responses by pointing to specific textual evidence.