Big Fish
Story and Myth
Freewriting: Strange Tales
- What is the most unusual/fantastical thing that has ever happened to you?
- What is the strangest story you have ever heard that the teller claimed to be true?
- What is more important/real: What happened or the story of what we remembered as happening?
- Even if you don’t know anyone who tells tall tales, the world if full of fantastical stories. Why? Why do imaginary stories matter to people so much?
Small Group Discussion
- Share the unusual stories you’ve heard and the thoughts in your freewriting
Large Group Discussion
- What are your thoughts about imaginary stories?
- We also call these stories: coincidence, divine intervention, superstition/witchcraft, luck, or random chance. legends
- William Bloom: “You’re like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, twice as charming and twice as fake. And I believed you for so much longer than I should have.”
- Narrative Inquiry blends fact and fiction, the real and the literary. To a narrative inquirer imagined stories are just as important as real ones. In fact, sometimes it is often imagination, not reality, that controls people’s possibilities in life.
- We come to believe the stories we tell.
Big Fish (The Film)
- Big Fish Film Version
- Directed by Tim Burton
Big Fish Wisdom
Some key quotes from the film:
- William Bloom: “In telling the story of my father’s life, it’s impossible to separate fact from fiction, the man from the myth. The best I can do is tell it the way he told me. It doesn’t always make sense and most of it never happened… but that’s what kinda story this is.”
- Edward: “Will never told you?… Ah, Probably just as well. He would have told it wrong anyway. All the facts and none of the flavor.”
Josephine: “Oh… so this is a tall tale?”
Edward: “Well, it’s not a short one.” - Dr. Bennett (Senior): “Did your father ever tell you about the day you were born?”
William Bloom: “A thousand times. He caught an uncatchable fish.”
Dr. Bennett (Senior): “Not that one. The real story. Did he ever tell you that?”
William Bloom: “No.”
Dr. Bennett (Senior): “Your mother came in about three in the afternoon. Her neighbor drove her, on account of your father was on business in Wichita. You were born a week early, but there were no complication. It was a perfect delivery. Now, your father was sorry to miss it, but it wasn’t the custom for the men to be in the room for deliveries then, so I can’t see as it would have been much different had he been there. And that’s the real story of how you were born.”
Dr. Bennett (Senior): “Not very excitin’, is it? And I suppose if I had to choose between the true version and an elaborate one involvin’ a fish and a wedding ring, I might choose the fancy version. But that’s just me.”
William Bloom: “I kinda like your version.”
Small Group Discussion
Large Group Discussion: The Power of Stories
- Can stories truly alter reality? If so, what responsibility does that impose on us if we use stories as research tools?
- Can stories be used to save people? Can we make use of that narrative power in any way as we conduct and write research?
Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions
- Written by Daniel Wallace
- Discussion Questions: Big Fish
- Some quotes from the novel:
- “You’re not necessarily supposed to believe it…You’re just supposed to believe in it.”
- “’You are a good dad,’ I say. ‘Thanks,’ he says, and his eyelids flutter a bit, as if he’s heard what he’s come to hear. This is what is meant by last words: they are keys to unlock the afterlife. They’re not last words but passwords, and as soon as they’re spoken you can go. ‘So.’”
- “When a man’s stories are remembered, then he is immortal.”
One Final Piece of Wisdom from Big Fish
- William Bloom (last lines): “That was my father’s final joke, I guess. A man tells his stories so many times that he becomes the stories. They live on after him. And in that way he becomes immortal.”