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Prologue—Part I, My Father’s Death: Take 1

Summary: Prologue 

The Prologue describes an incident near the end of the narrator’s father’s life, during a car trip. The father and son stop near a river, and the father puts his feet into the water and begins to remember something from his boyhood but stops before he tells his son the story. The narrator imagines his father as a timeless, mythical creature. Readers later learn that the narrator is Will and his father is Edward Bloom. 

Summary: Part I, The Day He Was Born 

Edward Bloom is born in Alabama during a terrible drought. As his mother labors, an enormous cloud appears in the sky. All the people, including Edward’s father, go to look at it. Everything changes as the rain begins, and Edward is born.

Summary: Part I, In Which He Speaks to Animals 

Edward seems to have an almost magical connection with the animals who live on his family’s farm. They follow him around and he seems to understand each animal’s unique language. One day, a chicken laid a tiny brown egg on Edward’s lap. Everyone marvels at Edward’s way with animals. 

Summary: Part I, The Year It Snowed in Alabama 

Nine-year-old Edward builds a sixteen-foot-tall snowman and his family sleeps in the treetops. One day, snow buries his schoolhouse, yet after getting to school, Edward walks the six miles home just to get the homework he forgot.

Summary: Part I, His Great Promise 

Edward goes through a growth spurt that is so intense he must stay in a bed for a year. During this time, he develops the ability to identify everyone by the sound of their footsteps, and he reads 10,000 books. 

Summary: Part I, My Father’s Death: Take 1

Will recalls the time immediately before Edward’s passing. Will’s mother, Sandra, suffers as her husband dies a slow death. During his life, Edward travelled often to exotic places, living in a state of constant aspiration. He always came home with fabulous stories. Edward does not like to sit still, which makes him a poor candidate for sickness and death. After Dr. Bennett tells them that nothing can be done, Will brings Edward a glass of water and they joke. Edward admits that he missed much of Will’s growing up. Edward then shares that his father, a farmer, was gone a lot, too, and grew a vine into the clouds. Edward says that stories make people immortal. Edward wants to be a great man. Will tells him that having a son who loves him makes him great, which puts Edward at ease until he wants to tell another story.

Analysis: Prologue—Part I, My Father’s Death: Take 1

In these first chapters, Wallace introduces the two main characters: Edward Bloom and his son, Will. He also introduces the flavor and tone of the novel: curious, outlandish at times, whimsical, and light-hearted. Events happen that are impossible, but they are described as true because they are part of Edward’s stories. Although the action in “My Father’s Death: Take 1” happens as Edward is dying, fittingly in the guest room of his own home, it is a fun chapter to read, as the banter between father and son is funny and uplifting. Although Edward has not been present for much of Will’s childhood, he is completely present now, just as Will is present for Edward when it seems to matter most. 

In the Prologue, Will calls his father a “mythical creature,” a description that will carry through all the chapters and culminate at the end. Edward is mythical because he is larger than life, made of stories, and timeless. These qualities are the foundation of the novel and inform every chapter that will follow. The events in the Prologue happen at a time and place that will bring the novel full circle. This spot by a river is where Will eventually carries his father at the end of his life, not to die exactly, but to be transformed.

“The Year It Snowed in Alabama,” ends with the phrase “True story,” a judgment that gathers meaning and momentum as the novel proceeds. However, what is “true” is often not what is historically accurate in Big Fish. What is “true” to Edward Bloom is not always true for his son, Will, or anyone else. In many ways, the novel represents a son’s quest for truth as it applies to his father. Will must give up his old notions of truth to accommodate his father’s because the old notions simply do not apply, and frankly, Edward is dying. The time to reconcile is now. Will clearly wants peace, acceptance, and closure as his father’s life ebbs away. To insist that both men accept his version of “truth” may not lead Will to that resolution. Will shows that he understands this, for he willingly lets go of his version of “reality” and accepts what Edward presents to him. This challenge is also the case for readers. Like Will, readers are called upon to alter their sense of truth to accommodate Edward Bloom’s.

“He was a big fish, even then,” is the last line of “His Great Promise.” The comment brings Edward Bloom’s life full circle. Even as a child, he showed great potential. He can speak to animals, identify people by their footsteps, has read 10,000 books, and builds outlandishly tall snowmen. Anyone around Edward hears stories about him that may or may not be real. Being a “big fish” means living a life that has enormous meaning, often exaggerated and overblown. It also means inspiring others to think beyond their small existences. Edward Bloom inspired others to be big fish, too, especially his son.

Next section Part I, The Girl in the River—Entering a New World

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