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.
Part IIIChapter Summaries & Analyses
Summary: “In Which He Buys a Town and More”
This story rises, as William says, "from the mist of the past like a shadow" (143). Edward has worked hard and been lucky enough to become wealthy. The Blooms move to a large house on a nicer street. Sandra stays at home, raising William, and Edward continues to spend most of his time away from the home, working. When he comes home, exhausted, he has "little to say other than he missed" (143) his wife and son. William recalls that no one in the family seems happy, to the point that his parents consider divorce. They decide, though, to stick it out.
Edward begins to spend his money on peculiar things, prompted by a feeling that there is "something missing in his life" (143-144). One day, he finds himself stuck in a town called Specter in either Alabama, Mississippi, or Georgia. He walks around the town as he waits for his car to be repaired. As he makes his way around the small town, he notices the quaint white houses, trees, and, most of all, the "mix of dirt, gravel, and asphalt roads" (144). This excites Edward, who loves nothing more than to get in a car and drive slowly down a road, taking in the scenery. He's done this many times, the world over.
He's become so famous for his slow driving that even his business associates plan their deals with him according to this habit. For example, if they know he'll be in a certain town, his associates will fly into the nearest airport and track him down on the road. They'll pull up beside him to get his attention, and he'll turn to them slowly, "the way Abraham Lincoln would have" (145), if Lincoln had driven a car, and pull over. Then the associate will get into Edward's passenger seat, his lawyers in the backseat, and they'll conduct their deal from the car as Edward keeps driving slowly down the road. William imagines that his father might even have affairs with "beautiful women, famous actresses" (145) in the car, complete with a candlelit meal.
Back in Specter, Edward continues to walk around. Friendly people all around smile as he passes them. He becomes so enamored with the town, with "its marvelous simplicity, its unadorned charm" (146),and its "somber quality…like living under water" (146) that he decides to buy it. He first purchases all the land surrounding the town, to prevent anyone from coming in and trying to build on it. He wants to preserve the town and its surrounding, just as it is. Over the next five or so years, Edward buys every available property, and then writes a letter to the remaining property owners, offering them "a handsome price" (147) for their businesses and homes. He tells them that he doesn't want them to move out, or pay him rent, only to change the name of the property owner.
Edward visits Specter every so often, unannounced, going into shops, chatting with the residents. William imagines that all of the townspeople love Edward because, as he says, "it is impossible not to love my father" (148). He stays the night with a different family every time, eats with them in the morning, makes his bed, and then leaves. During one of these visits, he sits on a bench outside of Al's Country Store, "doing nothing" (149). Wiley, the old man who sits beside him on the bench, remarks that "it is great" (149) what Edward has done with Specter. Edward smiles and tells him that he hasn't done anything with it. Wiley replies that that is the great thing. With eyes half-closed to shield them from the bright sun, Edward tells Al and Wiley that he knew when he saw Specter that he had to "have it all" (150). Wiley remarks that he doesn't, in fact, have it all. Using his perception, Edward can tell that "Wiley thinks he is telling the truth" (150). Edward reassures Wiley that he owns every inch of the town, so Wiley says he "won't bring up" (151) the little piece of land "where the road stops and the lake starts" (151). He apologizes sarcastically and says he'll drop the subject.
The next day, with Wiley's directions, Edward sets out to find the piece of land where the "road seems to end where it doesn't" (151), and the "lake seems to be where it isn't" (151). He drives until the road ends and the lake has overflown its boundaries, creating a little swamp. He gets out of the car and begins walking through the swamp, letting its scum climb up his legs, until he sees a house. It's not a shack at all, as Wiley had called it, but a house, with four walls and a working chimney. As he moves towards it, "the waters draw back, [and] the ground hardens" (152) and he's able to walk to the house on a little path.
He knocks on the front door, and a young woman invites him inside without coming to the door. Edward wipes his feet on the front mat, then enters the warm, clean home. He notices the fireplace, with blue jars arranged on the mantle, and then sees the young woman, with "long black hair…and still blue eyes" (152) standing in the doorway to a nearby room. Looking at her, Edward is surprised that, aside from "a streak of black ash" (153) on part of her neck, she is completely clean. She addresses him by his full name. She does not seem surprised that he's there. Edward tells her that he's there on business, and asks to speak to the owner of the house, possibly her mother or father. The woman replies that she is the owner. This shocks Edward, but the woman remains calm. He proceeds to tell her how he fell in love with Specter, then bought it, and that he'd like to buy her land and house, though nothing, for her, would change. She tells him that if he'll own the house and land, but she'll live in the house, and that it he'll come and go as he pleases, but she'll stay there, she'd rather "not change the way things haven't been changing all this time" (154).
Edward asks her to reconsider, telling her that everyone in the town "actually gains by this" (154), but she remains unconvinced. He tells her that he only wants the best for everybody, to which she replies, "[e]specially you" (154). She tells him that she's been on her own for a long time, and that money doesn't mean anything to her, and certainly won't change anything for her. Baffled, Edward asks the girl her name. She tells him that it's Jenny Hill. And at this moment, William says, his father fell in love with Jenny.
William wonders how love happens, whether Jenny and his father had to wait decades of their lives to find each other, or if his father's "fabled charm" (155) won her heart. Either way, Edward carries Jenny out of the swamp on his shoulders and drives her into town. They go to the small white house Edward has kept for himself in Specter, though he's never stayed there, and sets Jenny up there. Only now does he stop knocking on neighbors' doors at dusk asking for a place to stay. From then on, he stays in his house with Jenny when he comes to Specter. This arrangement raises a few eyebrows, but eventually "everybody sees the wisdom of living with the woman you love in the town you loved to live in" (156).
Jenny is alone most of the time while Edward is away from Specter. She integrates herself into the town's activities, organizing cakewalks and keeping the little house's garden green, but some nights, the neighbors hear her "wail" (157), as though in agony. As if he can hear her, Edward usually drives into town the next day.
As time goes on, people who have lived in Specter since they were kids start to forget how Edward Bloom became a fixture in their town. They forget how he and Jenny ever met and start to invent alternate histories of their relationship. They even start to tell stories about Edward's boyhood in Specter, like the time when Edward was ten-years-old and how, during a torrential rainstorm, he had walked away from town, singing, and the rain had followed him, sparing Specter from flood.
No one in Specter could say how Jenny had survived for twenty years in the swamp, without anyone knowing of her existence, but they agree that she was strange. With Edward gone so often, Jenny begins to change. She sits by her window "day and night staring out" (161), without blinking. People say that her eyes have begun to glow, and that she's become a "cold and hard" (161) person. The once lush garden succumbs to an overgrowth of weeds and vines, which quickly overtake the entire house. Then it begins to rain. The lake rises and a ring of water surrounds Jenny's house. Over a few days, the water ring becomes a swamp, and once again Jenny lives in a pristine house surrounded by a snake-infested swamp.
Edward returns to Specter to visit and, although he can see her eyes glowing from inside the house, can't get through the swamp to reach her. He returns home to William and Sandra, but he goes back to Specter every time he's away on business. He calls to Jenny in the house, but she can't speak or move. And this is why, William reasons, Edward is "so sad and tired when he comes home, and why he has so little to say" (163).
Summary: “How It Ends”
William flashes back to the day Edward came home with his diagnosis. He is at his parents' house, making a sandwich, while his mother dusts the picture frames in the living room. Edward comes into the house and tells Sandra, who's known about all of the tests he's been undergoing, "[i]t's everywhere" (165). William remarks that it's been a long time since he saw his father in the daylight and realizes that it's because Edward is in such bad physical condition. His parents don't tell him what exactly is 'everywhere,' but William figures out that it must be an illness of some kind.
Edward doesn't die, though. Instead, he takes up swimming. He'd never used their pool much before, but now he swims "as though he had been born in water" (165). Seeing his father's body, William notices its "scars, lesions, bruises, and abrasions" (165), which he's never before seen. After swimming for hours, Edward will come out of the pool and peel away layers of his skin.
When he's not swimming, Edward either sleeps or spaces out, as though "in communion with a secret" (166). William feels that his father is slowly drifting into a place and time foreign to him and his family. Seeing a silver lining to his father's decline, William comes to see his father's illness as a "metaphor" (166) for his inability to return to the fantastical world of his stories. The illness is "his ticket to a better place" (167). William appreciates that the illness has made it so that he is seeing his father more regularly now than at any other time in his life. Though his body is succumbing, Edward's sense of humor has remained intact, which Edward thinks "seems important" (167). He continues to tell silly jokes, but slowly loses his ability to remember punchlines.
The swimming pool, too, begins to "deteriorate" (168). Sandra and William are so consumed by dealing with Edward's impending death that they neglect to clean the pool or add the chemicals it needs. Edward, however, continues to swim in it until he physically can't. One day, while watching his father swim, William thinks that he sees a fish. He calls out to Edward, who is mid-stroke, about the fish, then realizes that his father hasn't stopped to look for the fishbut has passed out. William pulls his father out and calls an ambulance. He holds Edward's hand and waits for him to "open an eye and wink" (168), like he did when he 'fell' from the roof years ago, but Edward remains motionless.
Summary: “My Father's Death: Take 4”
William indicates that this version is how it "finally" (169) happens. Edward lays in a coma, housed in an oxygen tent at Jefferson Memorial Hospital. William and Sandra are there with him. The team of doctors, headed by Dr. Bennett, have "grave, even hopeless" (169) outlooks on Edward's health, and Dr. Bennett delivers news of their reports to William and his mother. The main concerns are "renal failure" and "chronic hemolytic anemia" (170), a kind of iron deficiency that resulted, partly, in an extreme sensitivity to light. For this reason, the lights in Edward's room are kept very dim.
Dr. Bennett asks to speak candidly with William and Sandra, then tells them that he doesn't think Edward is going to "make it out of this one" (170). He says he's known their family for so long, he feels like a friend and wishes he could do more to help. William wanders back into his father's hospital room and sits by the bed, watching the numbers and lines on the life support machines. He suddenly remembers one of his father's jokes, a "family heirloom" (171). He tells the joke to himself, aloud. It's about a very poor man who needs a new suitbut can't afford to buy one. He passes by a store with a nice blue suit in the window and finds that he can afford it. He buys the suit, but then realizes it's much too big for him. He has to hold his arms in a certain way and drag one leg as he walks for the suit to look like it fits him. Passing by two old women, one of them says, "What a poor, poor man!" (172), but the other says "Yes—but what a nice suit!" (172). By the end of the joke, William is crying, not laughing. He realizes that he can't tell the joke like his father did.
At just this moment, Edward rouses from his coma. He calls to William to bring him some water. Sandra is still outside talking to the doctor and hasn't heard, so William brings Edward a cup of water and sits beside him on the bed. Sensing his father's urgency, he doesn't ask him any questions. Edward tells him that he's worried. William asks if he's worried about "the hereafter" (173), and Edward tells him, "[n]o, dummy. I'm worried about you" (173). He calls William an idiot and says he couldn't get himself arrested unless he had his father along to help. William realizes this is the best joke his father can muster and tells him not to worry, he'll be fine. Edward tells him that because he's a father, it's his nature to worry about his son. He says that he's tried to teach his son "a thing or two" (174), and now wants to know what William feels he taught him, so he can die in peace. William reflects that he'd like to tell Edward he wishes he knew him better and that they'd spent more time together, but instead of saying either, he starts telling the joke about the poor man who needed a suit.
Summary: “Big Fish”
The final section begins just after William tells Edward the joke. Edward looks up at William and winks at him, then says they should get out of the hospital. William protests, but Edward tells him to get the wheelchair out of the bathroom, cover him with a blanket, and wheel him out of the room. They do this and sneak out past Sandra and Dr. Bennett. Edward tells his son to take him to the parking garage quickly, because they "don't have much time" (176). The nurses and doctors they pass by in the lobby give them odd looks, but don't try to stop them.
Once in the car, Edward tells William that they need to hurry again, and asks his son for water. William says he has a thermos of it in the car, but Edward laughs and says they'll need more than that. They begin to drive away from the hospital, and Edward hasn't yet said where they're going. He asks for the thermos of water, and, when William gives it to him, takes it in his scaly hand and dumps it onto his body, soaking the blanket. From under the blanket, he tells William to take Highway 1 north to "a place by the river" (178). Under his breath, William says, "Edward's Grove" (178), a place from one of Edward's many stories of his youth.
They pass the city and suburbs, emerging into "deep, green, beautiful country" (178). William asks his father how much further they have to go, and he replies that he hopes it's just a few more miles because he doesn't feel well. From under the blanket, he begins to emit a pained gurgle. William asks if he's okay, and his father says, "I feel like that guy…" (178), a set-up for one of many jokes that William finishes in his head. Edward suddenly yells for William to stop.
William pulls over at a spot near a river, under a large oak tree. He realizes that it isn't Edward's Grove, but it "might as well have been" (179). Edward is still underneath the blanket and William isn't sure how he even knew where they were. In a voice so weak that William has to interpret what he means to say, Edward tells his son to carry him. Edward also tells him that he doesn't know how he appreciates what William is doing for him, and says to tell Sandra that he says goodbye. William carries his father in his arms down to the riverbank. He feels as though he knows what he's supposed to do, but is unable to do it. Edward says that William "might want to look away now" (179), and suddenly the body in William's arms begins moving with the "most fantastic life" (180). He tries to hold onto it, but discovers he's holding nothing but the blanket. Edward has leapt into the river. William realizes that Edward wasn't dying at all; rather, he was "transforming himself" (180) into something to carry on his life. In his final moment, Edward has become a fish.
William watches his father swim away into the deepest part of the river, and he never sees him again. Soon after, though, he begins to hear stories of a big fish in the river, with the power to grant wishes and save lives. Those people tell their stories to "anybody who will listen" (180), though no one ever believes them.
Part III Analysis
By the time of Edward's death, William seems to have finally come to terms with Edward as a father. After telling the story of Specter and Jenny Hill, William extends compassion to Edward, reflecting that Jenny's sequestering is why his father often came home tired and unable to speak. While sitting by his comatose father's bedside, William doesn't lament the nature of their relationship as he did in the other versions. Instead, with Edward incapacitated, William is the one who tells the joke—one he learned from his father.
William himself narrates all but one of the sections in Part III, revealing that he has assumed one of the roles Edward played while alive—namely, as a storyteller. In this way, Edward achieves the kind of immortality that he sought his entire life. Though the story of Specter comes from Edward, William acknowledges the ways in which a story becomes a legend. He mentions how over the years people begin to add details they think they remember until those imagined details pass for fact. This understanding is what helps William to become a good storyteller himself.
The whole novel has been setting up the final scene, in which Edward transforms from man to fish. Taken in the terms laid out by Edward and William, the facts of whether this event took place as William tells it don't matter. What matters is that the reader can suspend their notions of reality and indulge in the magic of a well-told story. Given the novel's dealing with mythology, the river here could represent the mythological River Styx, which leads to the Underworld. Taken metaphorically, by releasing his father into the river, William releases Edward from his earthly body into his celestial or transcendent body.
