Truth, Myth, and Immortality Theme Analysis

In Big Fish, Edward Bloom transforms his life story into a series of metaphorical tales in order to teach his son, William, important life lessons. The tales depict Edward as a legendary hero who faces challenging adversaries (like giants and beasts) and overcomes them using his wits, charm, and strength. William narrates these stories to the reader while reflecting on his relationship with his father. William feels disconnected from his father, who prefers to make up tales instead of talking plainly and honestly about his experiences, feelings, and values. William thus dismisses Edward’s tales as “stupid” stories that mask the truth about Edward’s life experience. Eventually, however, William realizes that Edward’s stories communicate many things about Edward as a person and what he wants what lessons he wants to impart on his son. And because Edward’s stories are so memorable, William is able to retain the lessons they transmit long after Edward dies. Author Daniel Wallace thus communicates that myths aren’t merely “stupid” stories that deflect the truth, like William initially assumes. Rather, they serve a profound purpose by imbuing their heroes with a kind of immortality and rendering their life lessons memorable long after they are gone.

At the beginning of Big Fish, William thinks that Edward’s fabricated stories leave him feeling like he doesn’t “really know” his father, highlighting William’s initial belief that myths are pointless. William expresses frustration at hearing yet another story about a two-headed lady while Edward is on his deathbed. Exasperated, William says, “I don’t want to hear about her anymore, Dad,” implying that William feels the fantastical elements in Edward’s stories deflect from the facts about Edward’s life. William similarly implores Edward to talk “man to man, father to son. No more stories,” showing that William thinks the stories interfere with his desire to know his father better.

Although William is dissatisfied with Edward’s tales, the tales themselves are not actually as meaningless as William thinks—in fact, they communicate a great deal about the values that Edward wishes to pass on to his son. When William is a young boy, Edward makes a list of virtues that he wants to pass on to his son—namely “perseverance, ambition, personality, optimism, strength, intelligence [and] imagination”—and these are the qualities that Edward’s stories emphasize. For example, Edward emerges into adulthood bleeding and penniless, but refuses to accept “charity” from a family who run a country store, opting to clean the store in his battered state in exchange for medical assistance. Although many elements of this story might be fabricated—such as Edward’s insistence that he vigorously mops the floor with a broken leg while bleeding to death—the story itself communicates Edward’s emphasis on perseverance and strength. In another story, a ravenous giant named Karl is ravaging Edward’s childhood town, stealing all the food and driving everyone into poverty. The townsfolk want to kill the giant, but Edward seeks out the giant and soothes him by being charming and kind. Edward proposes teaching the giant how to farm so that he doesn’t have to steal food anymore. Edward thus emphasizes the importance of solving problems with imagination and intelligence instead of violent confrontation.

For Edward, blurring truth and fiction is valuable because it makes stories memorable, allowing their heroes to live on and their lessons to be preserved. Edward is thrilled when William remembers one of Edward’s old stories because it means that William will remember him after he dies. Edward says that “remembering a man’s stories makes him immortal” before expressing to William how happy he is that “at least you remembered,” exposing his wish to live on in his son’s memories through his stories.

The novel also compares Edward to memorable Ancient Greek mythical heroes like Hercules and Odysseus—whose myths are remembered thousands of years after their time, even though they also communicate simple truths about the human experience, just as Edward’s stories do. Wallace alludes to the 12 “labors” of Hercules when entitling Edward’s attempt to settle in Alabama “His Three Labors.” Like Hercules, Edward has to clean animal feces in one of his labors. Both heroes emerge triumphant because they are able to complete the labor without being humiliated by its menial nature. Wallace also draws parallels between Edward and Odysseus (the mythical roaming hero of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey) when recounting Edward’s roaming journey of a life. Like Odysseus, Edward has to earn the right to marry the woman he loves by defeating a rival suitor (in Edward’s case, the rival is a drunk bully named Don Price). In depicting Edward as a mythical hero like Hercules and Odysseus, Wallace implies that Edward’s combination of fantasy and reality helps to communicate enduring truths about the human experience that will live on long after Edward does—similar to the way that stories about Hercules and Odysseus have.

In the final passages of the book, William finally realizes that myths do have value because they preserve their heroes’ messages, and they allow heroes to live on as mythic versions of themselves. When Edward dies, William transforms the story of Edward’s death into a myth that celebrates Edward’s relentless drive for adventure. In this myth, Edward doesn’t die but changes into a “big fish” who swims on to more adventures. William thus depicts Edward’s death not as an ending, but as a transformation from mortal existence to the immortal world of myth. William describes Edward’s transformation as one that turns Edward “into something new and different to carry his life forward in,” meaning that Edward lives on after death, immortalized by his stories.