A Tidewater Morning Summary
William Styron

A Tidewater Morning Summary

Several themes parallel and reflect one another in this series of interconnected stories. The most obvious may be the one in which Styron's various social concerns affect his characters.

World War II, the Great Depression, and the lingering racist legacy of slavery consistently reveal the power of historical circumstance to maim and victimize individual people. In "Love Day" on April Fool's Day, 1945, Paul Whitehurst on his troopship remembers witnessing a dogfight in the sky the day before, at the same time he learns that his Marine unit will be involved not in a real battle but in a mock amphibious attack in an attempt to draw the Japanese away from the authentic invasion. In "A Tidewater Morning" at the age of thirteen he reads the headlines in the local paper in 1938 about the approaching war. In both cases the war underscores the human discord and sense of anxious...

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