In Big Fish, William Bloom comes to terms with the fact that his father, Edward Bloom, is about to die of cancer. Before his illness, Edward was an adventurous man who spent most of his life on the road as a traveling salesman instead of staying at home with William and William’s mother, Sandra. William deeply loves his father, but he is frustrated because he thinks Edward has been an absent father, and that Edward uses jokes and stories to avoid having a serious or meaningful connection with William. Sandra, in contrast, has always accepted Edward for who he is despite his infuriating tendencies to favor humor over seriousness and adventure over staying put. Despite William’s frustrations with his father, author Daniel Wallace shows that in truth, Edward is a fiercely loving, albeit flawed, father. It’s only when William stops pushing Edward to be a more perfect version of himself (somebody more serious and grounded, perhaps) and accepts Edward for who he actually is that William feels the connection he has craved for most of his life. As unsatisfying as Edward’s jokes, tall tales, and lengthy absences are to William, they are part and parcel of who Edward is and a very real component of why William loves him. Wallace thus communicates that people aren’t perfect, but that being truly connected to someone entails accepting and loving them for who they are.
Because Sandra can accept and love Edward for who he really is without trying to change him, she experiences a deep, loving, and profound bond with her husband and is able to make peace with Edward’s imminent death much more easily than William. Wallace shows that Sandra accepts Edward exactly as he is when he writes, “Simply by being who he was—no more, no less—my father was winning my mother’s heart.” When Edward is on his deathbed, Sandra sheds “tears of frustration” about how “incorrigible” he is in his last moments, but she has no broader regrets beyond being left behind without him, exactly as he is.
William, in contrast, is full of regret because he feels that he doesn’t know his real father, just a joking, “flawed” version of him. William thinks Edward’s jokes and tall tales are a distancing mechanism that obscure the real Edward behind a “facade.” When recounting Edward’s death for the first time, William is bitter because he feels his father wasn’t really there for him as a child because of his lengthy absences. William also discusses Edward’s affair with Jenny Hill that nearly breaks up the family, further emphasizing that Edward was far from a perfect father.
As the story progresses, however, William realizes that Edward’s flaws encapsulate many things that William loves about him. William is filled with “wonder” from his father’s “fabulous” stories, and compares the “magic of his absence” to the “ordinariness of his presence,” implying that even though William feels wronged by Edward’s lengthy absences, Edward’s adventures still fill William with a sense of magic and wonder that is part of why he loves his father. Similarly, William acknowledges that although Edward is an “itinerant dad,” he becomes depressed when his life becomes too regular. Edward “hate[s] to wake up in the same room every morning, see the same people, do the same things.” This implies that Edward wouldn’t be the same “magic” version of himself if he were trapped in a life that restricted him. Indeed, when Edward gets sick and isn’t able to roam anymore, he becomes a shadow of himself—Edward’s “bright” eyes become “weary” and he seems “frustrated and lost.”
As William retells the story of Edward’s life, William realizes that Edward isn’t all bad—in fact he’s a fiercely loving, engaged, and protective father who watches over William with passion, twice even saving William’s life from near-fatal accidents. William also starts to remember that despite Edward’s lengthy absences, he still made time for playing ball and having picnics with a young William, and he always pushed William to grow. William says Edward “made cameo and yet heroic appearances in my own life, saving my life when he could, urging me toward my own manhood. And yet he was called away by forces greater even than himself; he was, as he said, riding the tiger.” William recalls here that Edward strove to be an inspiring and empowering father figure while balancing fatherhood with his desire for adventure. William thus starts to accept that Edward’s quirks—problematic and frustrating as they are—don’t reflect a lack of love on Edward’s part.
It’s only when William realizes that Edward’s ways—flawed as they are—aren’t an excuse to distance himself from his son, but an attempt to love, care for, and teach him in the best way Edward knows how, that William can feel connected to his father make peace with his father’s death. Eventually, William retells the story of Edward’s death the way Edward would want it—as a fantastic myth, rather than a sad and grievous event. This shows that William has let go of his disappointment at not having a more conventional father as and lets himself celebrate Edward as he is, and is finally able to let him go.
Wallace thus shows that wanting somebody to be a different—or better—version of themselves stands in the way of connecting with them for they really are. In the end, thus, accepting and loving someone in their imperfections is what makes people feel truly connected.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Love, Flaws, and Acceptance ThemeTracker
Love, Flaws, and Acceptance Quotes in Big Fish
An itinerant dad, home for him was a stop on his way somewhere else, working toward a goal that was unclear. […] It was as though he lived in a state of constant aspiration: getting there, wherever it was, wasn’t the important thing: it was the battle, and the battle after that, and the war was never ending.
At home, the magic of his absence yielded to the ordinariness of his presence. He drank a bit. He didn’t become angry, but frustrated and lost, as though he had fallen into a hole. On those first nights home his eyes were so bright you would swear they glowed in the dark, but then after a few days his eyes became weary. He began to seem out of his element and he suffered for it.
Simply by being who he was—no more, no less—my father was winning my mother’s heart.
While my mother took care of the day-to-day things, he brought vision to the task. He made a list of the virtues he possessed and wanted to pass on to me: perseverance, ambition, personality, optimism, strength, intelligence, imagination.
The very idea of coming home at the same time every single day made him nauseated. Regardless of how much he loved his wife, his son, he could only stand so much love. […] He needed a break.
But he liked to leave me laughing. This is how he wanted to remember me, and how he wanted to be remembered. Of all his greatest powers, this was perhaps his most extraordinary: at any time, at the drop of a hat, he could really break me up.
“There’s this man, and he’s a poor man, but he needs a suit, and—”
And that’s when I discovered that my father hadn’t been dying after all. He was just changing, transforming himself into something new and different to carry his life forward in. All this time, my father was becoming a fish.
