Gant in Oxford (Belles Lettres) (Eugene Gant) (Critical Essay‪)‬

Of Time and the River and I came into the world within months of one another. But infants know nothing of stories, and it would be some years before I discovered Wolfe's stories and novels and began to imagine a link between my personal destiny and that of his hero, Eugene Gant. It was natural, for family reasons, that I would follow Gant to Chapel Hill, my father and many relatives on both North Carolina and Georgia sides of the family being alumni. The editorship of the Tar Heel came later, in my senior year, though the Oxford destiny--of which more presently--came as a surprise. There is a sort of prelude or overture to Eugene Gant's Oxford visit in Look Homeward, Angel. He visits "Mr. Torrington, the old Rhode's [sic ] Scholar (Pulpit Hill and Merton, '14)" in Torrington's office (397).