Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Big Fish, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Ambition, Courage, and Personal Fulfilment
Truth, Myth, and Immortality
Love, Flaws, and Acceptance
The Redemptive Power of Laughter
Summary
Analysis
Edward has become wealthy from smart investments, and the family moves to a bigger house. Edward continues to travel and work hard, and he’s always tired when he comes home. Nobody is happy, and there’s even talk of breaking up the family, but Sandra and Edward decide to see the “hard times” through.
William shows that Edward’s relentless drive for adventure is starting to wear on Edward and the family, though he keeps pushing forward nonetheless. Sandra’s willingness to work through the “hard times” with Edward indicates her love and acceptance of him, despite the negative impact of his relentlessly drive.
Themes
Edward starts spending money in unpredictable ways as he turns 40 and realizes something’s missing in his life. He happens upon an idyllic little town called Specter somewhere in the South and becomes enamored of its charm as he drives through leisurely in his car, his “magic carpet.” Lots of things happen in Edward’s car—he’s such a slow driver that people come to the car for meetings. Maybe, William thinks, he even has affairs and romances in his car, dining over the gearbox covered in a tablecloth.
The comparison of Edward’s car to a “magic carpet” adds an air of mythic fantasy to Edward’s adventures. The reader learns that one of the most problematic outcomes of Edward’s drive for adventure is his infidelity. This clues the reader into one of the reasons why William struggles to accept his father’s personality.
Themes
Edward falls in love with Specter’s dilapidated, simple charm and decides to buy the town. It runs at a pace that reminds Edward of being underwater. Edward buys up the circle of land around the land so that nobody can develop it, then surreptitiously buys the whole town bit by bit over five or six years. He pays handsomely for it all, convincing each owner that nothing changes except his name on the deed. Things continue as before in Specter and Edward loves the townsfolk just as they love him.
Edward’s ambition extends so far that he winds up purchasing a whole town. It’s not clear how much of this story is fabricated, since it’s feasible that an ambitious, rich man could by a whole town, even if it is far-fetched. The true and fantastical elements of Edward’s life blend more seamlessly in this story, just as the myth and the man start to become more fused in William’s mind.
Themes
One day, Al (who owns the country store) says it’s wonderful how Edward’s revived the town but let the town stay just as it is. Edward says he was inexplicably compelled. Another man named Wiley leans in and says sincerely that Edward doesn’t own the whole town: there’s a shack hidden in the swamp that he hasn’t bought yet. Edward drives to the swamp and wades into the muck until he sees a clean, well-kept house, in which a young woman (Jenny Hill) with black braided hair and blue eyes lives. Edward tells her that he’s compelled to buy the whole town and offers her a handsome sum, explaining she can still live there as before.
The reader learns that Edward’s ambition is not entirely selfish, since Al implies that Edward might have bought the forgotten town to help alleviate the poverty of its residents. Wallace introduces more water-related imagery by weaving a swamp into the narrative. The swamp discussed here is a literal swamp, but Wallace will shortly shift into a metaphorical allusion that compares swamps to being stuck in life.
Themes
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Jenny Hill politely declines, and Edward is getting desperate. She explains that she doesn’t need money and she’s perfectly happy with things as they are. Edward promptly falls in love with her. William thinks that love is strange. He doesn’t know why Jenny Hill decides Edward is for her. Is it Edward’s charm? Is it destiny? William has no idea. Edward lifts Jenny onto his shoulders, wades out of the swamp, deposits her in the house he owns, and moves in.
William explains that Edward has an affair with Jenny Hill, which explains some of the resentment that William holds on to when thinking about Edward. Nonetheless, William’s recollection is compassionate, since he acknowledges without judgment that Edward and Jenny genuinely fell in love, even if he doesn’t understand why.
Themes
The townsfolk think Edward is “wise and good and kind” so they don’t question Edward’s actions, although they do wonder if Jenny gets lonely when Edward’s gone, which is most of the time. Jenny is active in the town, but at night she cries in deep pain. Whenever Edward sporadically returns, however, she’s all smiles, just as before. Years pass like this, and Edward’s itinerant presence becomes so normal that people start to think he lived in Specter all his life.
Here, the reader learns a bit more about why William struggles to accept his father. William shows that Edward is so well admired that few people question his actions. William subtly hints here at one of the downsides of a person who is very charming, like Edward—they can get away with a lot, even problematic situations like Edward’s affairs.
Themes
In Specter, “history becomes what never happened.” People forget and remember the wrong things so that “what’s left is fiction.” Edward and Jenny never marry, so people make up stories about how they met, and how Edward is her traveling salesman husband. The stories keep changing. People even talk about a time when Edward was 10 years old, and Specter was about to be flooded in a storm, but he sang until the rain followed him, and he led the storm away, saving the town. The townsfolk reinvent Edward, and he doesn’t seem to mind.
Wallace shows that even the townsfolk in Specter make up myths about Edward, thus further reinforcing his role as a legendary hero who embodies qualities they admire. Wallace also subtly alludes to the fact that in life, much of history is infused with fiction, because people misremember things, guess information to fill in gaps, and exaggerate stories. This means that even outside of a fictional context, the line between truth and fiction is often somewhat blurred.
Themes
Jenny is young and beautiful but longs for Edward. She stares out of the window all day. She stares so much that people think they can see her eyes glowing like “faint yellow lights” out of the window, and it’s “kind of scary.” The garden becomes overgrown with weeds and vines in a matter of days, and it rains for days on end. The dam bursts ,and a swamp gathers around Jenny’s house. When Edward returns to Specter, he sees Jenny glowing but can’t get to her, so he returns—as always—to Sandra and William. He goes back often but he can’t have Jenny, and he is always sad and tired when he returns home, with little to say.
The swamp that grows around Jenny’s home represents her stagnation as a person who becomes bitter from living a passive life. Jenny grows distant and emotionally inaccessible because she is perpetually waiting for life to happen for her, instead of being an active person (like Edward) who moves forward to make life happen. The swamp—with its stagnant waters—represents how people get stuck and stop growing when they don’t actively live their lives, but let life pass them by.
Themes
