85 pages • 2 hours read
Daniel WallaceBig Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1998A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
Fatherhood
Wallace presents a few father-son relationships in this novel, though Edward and William's drives its plot. Edward's own father, a hardworking—or maybe hard-drinking—farmer, has a traditional relationship with Edward, in that he expects Edward's obedience and help on the farm. Sandra's father loves his daughter with such fondness that he comes to believe his own childhood stories he tells about her, in which she hangs the moon in the sky.
Edward, in contrast, never seems quite comfortable in his role as a father. Though he loves his son and hopes to pass onto him some of his own virtues, "he could only stand so much love" (123). Because of this, he's only ever home on the weekends, and even then isn't fully comfortable or present. While William wishes that Edward had imparted some practical skills or serious knowledge on him, Edward seems incapable of engaging in any ways other than storytelling and joking. William's frustration with his father begins to dissipate, as he realizes, through retelling his father's life story, that Edward "is just being him, something he can't not be" (114). By the novel's end, he and Edward have reached a kind of understanding via William's patience and a kind of role reversal, in which William must take care of his dying father. He even carries out his father's last dying wish.
The Role of Storytelling
The first function of storytelling in Big Fish is to preserve a legacy, for posterity. Edward's desire to be a 'big fish,' or a "great man" (21) drives Edward to present his life in stories so memorable that he can never be forgotten, no matter how long he's been dead. As he insists, "remembering a man's stories makes him immortal" (20). For as long as someone, like William, who's heard his stories is alive and retelling them, Edward will live forever.
Edward also uses storytelling to interact with the world in a fantastical way. As William explains, Edward gets bored and restless when faced with the quotidian. His stories serve as windows, or momentary escapes, into a magical life, beyond the confines of what he perceives as an otherwise dull life. Edward insists that it's not important to believe someone's stories, but rather to believe in them, meaning that the truth matters less to him than providing an entertainment, or allowing for multiple interpretations of how an event transpired.
Though he spends most of the novel retelling stories he's heard Edward tell, William tells his own stories in the form of his four versions of Edward's death, as well as the novel's final section and the sections about his own childhood. He reveals himself to be just as gifted a storyteller as Edward, which makes the reader wonder how much William has added in recounting Edward's life stories. Though he's resistant to Edward's yarn spinning at first, William comes around to it on his own terms.
Immortality
The novel presents a few understandings of the idea of immortality. Edward understands it in a metaphorical sense, in that "remembering a man's stories" (20) is what grants him immortality. Although he seems incapable of having a serious conversation, Edward isn't foolish, and knows that one day he will cease to live. Dr. Bennett, a man older than Edward, expresses that he never thought Edward would die, likely because of his mythically-constructed persona. In the beginning of the book, William reflects that death is "the worst thing that ever could have happened to my father" (15). As a child, William witnesses one of Edward's near-death experiences and concludes that his father is literally immortal. It's later revealed that Edward likely staged the incident. As the novel progresses, William accepts his father's inevitable mortality and, in retelling his father's life story, seems to adopt Edward's attitude towards immortality.
Classical and Personal Mythology
Edward's feats, and the language he uses to describe them, set himself up as an epic hero on par with mythic quest-seekers like Hercules and Odysseus. Wallace makes many allusions to Homer's epic poem, The Odyssey. In one of many parallels with Odysseus, Edward wanders the globe while his wife and son wait at home, just as Odysseus wandered the Mediterranean while his wife and son waited at home. He also undertakes several 'labors,' just as Hercules, another mythic hero, did as penance for slaying his wife and children.
In addition, Wallace also alludes to other mythic creatures, like mermaids and carnivorous giants; places, like purgatory, and the River Styx; and specific mythological men,including Moses and Sisyphus. Their inclusion gives the novel a texture of grandiosity and possibility that extends beyond Edward's personal life and into the world-at-large. It's as though there exist two worlds, the magical one, into which only Edward can venture, and the mundane one, in which everyone else lives.
