My Big Fish Tale

This week I decided to watch one of the suggested movies on the syllabus, Big Fish, a tale about a strained relationship between a father and son. The story entails a father who tells his life story as an epic tale to his son.  At first the son enjoys the stories; however, as the son grows older, he begins to question the authenticity of each story.  Only during the most intimate moment, the son becomes satisfied that he finally connected with his father and is astonished when he  personally meets the characters of his father’s stories. Overall, Big Fish demonstrates that storytelling is a passion, passed from generation to generation.

Passing down stories from generation to generation best expresses how storytelling connects us.  As we talked on the first day of class, storytelling is about connecting.  Big Fish, not only told a story about a storyteller, but also how stories connect us to one another. Personally, I connected with Big Fish as the main character, Edward Bloom reminded me of my father.  Not only the parallel of my father dying, but the fact that my father liked to tell “tall tales” connected me to the story.  I have numerous stories that remind me how much Dad had his own fairytales: beauty queen judging, monster bashes, and farm life.  One  of the last stories I remember is when shortly after having surgery to remove a cancerous tumor, my dad told several of the neighborhood kids that a shark bit him and that he had to battle the shark for his life.  Cancer was that shark.  A couple of years ago, my mother ran into his oncologists who clearly remembered Dad as “the jokester that tried to fool death.” 

After nearly 35 years, I still miss my Dad.  However, I still feel connected to him every time I share one of his tales.  Thanks, Big Fish for connecting us again. 

With A Happy Heart,

Cynde