Previous Next

Part III, In Which He Buys a Town, and More—Big Fish

Summary: Part III, In Which He Buys a Town, and More

Edward reaches middle age. Wealthy and successful, he buys a bigger house, and Sandra stays home with Will, but happiness eludes them. Edward travels more. His car breaks down in a town called Specter. Edward falls in love with the place and buys it parcel by parcel until he owns the whole town. He visits often and everyone loves him. One day, Edward sits in front of Al’s Country Store when a man named Wiley tells him that there is one place in Specter Edward doesn’t own, a shack in a swamp. 

At the shack, Edward meets Jenny Hill, owner of the tidy house. When Edward offers to buy it, she refuses, but they fall in love. When Edward visits Specter, he stays with Jenny. One day, he brings her to a little white house where she grows gardens and waits for his next visit. In time, Jenny changes. She stares out the window and her eyes begin to glow. Weeds take over her garden. It rains so much that her house becomes a swamp, surrounded by deep, dark, mossy water. When Edward can no longer have Jenny, he returns to Will and Sandra, tired and sullen. 

Summary: Part III, How It Ends

Edward returns home one day and announces his cancer is everywhere. He starts to swim daily in their pool. Edward’s health deteriorates, but not his sense of humor. Will sees him every day. The pool turns swampy and green, but still, Edward swims. One day, Will sees Edward as a fish. When Edward passes out in the water, Will calls an ambulance, waiting for his father to crack a joke that never comes. 

Summary: Part III, My Father’s Death: Take 4

Edward is hospitalized on life-support machines. Despite Dr. Bennett’s efforts, he is dying. Will goes into Edward’s room and sits with him, remembering one of Edward’s all-time favorite jokes, a story about a poor man who buys a suit that's too large. Edward rouses and asks Will for water. He confesses that he’s worried about Will. Edward asks him if he’s been a good father, and he asks what he has taught Will. After wishing that he knew Edward better, Will answers with the story of the man and the ill-fitting suit. 

Summary: Part III, Big Fish

Edward asks Will to help him escape the hospital. Will wheels him out in a wheelchair, through the lobby, and into the car. When Edward asks for water, he pours it all over himself. He instructs Will on which way to drive, and they end up at a place that looks like Edward’s Grove with an oak tree and a river. Too weak to walk, Edward asks Will to carry him to the water. As a squirming Edward jumps into the river, he transforms into a silver fish and disappears. Over time, Will hears stories of people whose lives are changed by the biggest fish they’ve ever seen, but no one believes them. 

Analysis: Part III, In Which He Buys a Town, and More—Big Fish

“In Which He Buys a Town, and More,” the longest chapter in Big Fish, is a metaphor for Edward’s heart and his entire life. It is a ghost story that pulls elements from other stories: the adoring crowd, the love of animals, the country store, the young woman, the heavy rains, and most importantly, the stories that take over reality the way the vines take over Jenny’s little white house. Will’s first-person voice is present at the beginning and the end, fittingly absent in the middle, just as he and his mother are absent from the strange, dreamlike setting. Edward finds himself in Specter, and then with Jenny Hill, and then loses himself again to the dark, mossy swamp of reality. Specter is a haunting, figurative tale about the mid-life crisis of a traveling salesman who can win the hearts of others but not his own. He can buy a whole town but cannot own his soul.

The last three chapters tell the story of Edward’s death in mostly realistic terms. “My Father’s Death: Take 4,” completes the quartet of stories by digging even deeper into the truth. However, just when readers think that the story will end without a stupid joke, Will retells the joke of the ill-fitting suit. Instead of digging into the conversation about the meaning of fatherhood and the complexity of their relationship, Will tells Edward a joke. He becomes his father in the end, which is exactly what Edward wanted. Here, as Edward dies, Will becomes part of his father’s final and ultimate fish story. Will is the one who carries Edward to the river and releases him. Will is the one who plays the role of the mysterious river girl and leads Edward to safety. Will becomes the hero of his father’s last story.

In the end, the novel never lets readers off the hook, so to speak. Readers may think that the narrative moves from fantasy to reality because of Edward’s very real human death, but Wallace has other plans. Edward doesn’t die. Instead, he shape-changes and gains new life. In the end, Edward fulfills his prophecy that a man’s stories make him immortal, as he finally becomes both a great man and the legendary fish that people talk about but never catch. The novel comes full circle, back to the very first memory that Will shares of his father with his pale feet in the river’s water, being reminded of when he was a boy. In the prologue, Will says that his father became a myth, and that’s exactly where Wallace takes us: into the place and time where all of Edwards’s stories, and Will’s, too, melt into one perfect moment of swimming away.

Ultimately, the novel asks readers to think about truth. Are Edward’s stories true? They may not be historically accurate, but they do hold truths about being human. Like the animals he has a way with, Edward knows a special language, a figurative one that readers associate with fairy tales, legends, and fables. Like the landlady’s glass eye, Edward can see things that others cannot. He can see beyond the surface, deep into the lake, to a truth that is truer than truth, a truth that sets him free.

Previous section Part II, How He Saw Me—In Which He Has a Dream Next section Full Book Summary

Take a Study Break