A Story's Impact on Life in Tim Burton's Big Fish

Upon entering the circus, Edward spots a beautiful girl whom he vows to marry. However, she soon vanishes and he never learns her name. The ringmaster, Amos, agrees to provide Edward with clues about the girl each month that he works for him. He does everything Amos asks of him, which includes sticking his head in a lion’s mouth, washing an obese circus performer, cleaning up after the elephants, and being fired from a cannon. Edward completes every task with a smile knowing that he is one step closer to meeting his future wife.

The power of the story has been very much a part of the lives of humans throughout time. The story is able to bring the past to the present and the dead to the living. The story can make the blind see. The story is able to make others feel for events in time that they have never experienced. The story has a profound effect on both the teller and the audience. As the audience is thought to be the beneficiary or the storytelling process, the teller is able to relive the times of old, or even teach a valuable lesson to his or her audience. Thus, allowing both parties to gain something intangible throughout this process. In “The Lives of the Dead,” O’Brien conveys the importance of storytelling and imagination by suggesting that the dead can be brought back to life in the minds of the people who hear it.

The short story “The Boat” by Alistair MacLeod is narrated by a man who comes from a fishing family. His mother’s side of the family has forever lived and worked by the sea and continues this tradition. The narrator’s father always wanted to be an academic, but worked on the boat to support his family. Through this passage it is evident that the parents’ characters clash in many aspects of their lives and are in constant conflict. MacLeod demonstrates this through the use of repetition, the contrast in other unrelated ideas, and through information that is withheld.

Tim Burton is an extraordinary film director of playful yet frightening movies that revolve around a character that is different from the rest. In a Burton movie, the audience will find most characters wearing bright colors with an almost perfect life. However, the character that experiences a significant and prominent adventure is often the protagonist who is different than the other characters, based on their dark and eerie past. Burton is able to smoothly transition from a joyous mood, to a suspicious and creepy mood. For example, Edward Scissorhands is a story about a man named Edward, who has scissors for hands and is brought into the “real world” for the first time in his life. Big Fish focuses on the unbelievable and incredible stories

1. David Foster Wallace opens his speech with an anecdote about fish and water. Metaphorically, what does this anecdote represent? What impact does it have when Wallace returns to the line “This is water”again at the end of the speech?

While winning an arm wrestling match with his father, Manning feels the same thrill as hooking a giant fish. But he decides he would be happier if he “let him go, cut the line, keep the legend alive.” Reference of the father as a big fish stresses his physical and spiritual prominence. By referring to him as a “legend,” Manning clearly shows his awe and admiration for his father and his authorities as a guardian of the family. Though his father is growing weak, his former presence as a protective father will always remain as his legend. The reference to the big fish can also relate to Daniel Wallace’s Big Fish. The novel is similar with Manning’s story in that it is about a father-and-son relationship where Edward, the father, becomes a legendary big fish through his stories, just as Manning’s father is portrayed as a “Big Joe” for his significance in the family. Manning’s decision to free the fish reflects his desire not to destroy his father’s glory but preserve

The relationship between a father and son is extremely important and can impact the son’s actions for the rest of his life. Trust is a crucial component to any good relationship, but especially between a father and son. In the novel Big Fish by Daniel Wallace, William, and his father, Edward do not have a strong connection. Edward’s exaggerated stories and excessive humor prevent them from having a deep and trusting relationship.

By making a death humorous it may help you or someone else deal with the pain about the death or possibly not think of it as an actual death. Also, when thinking constantly about a person who has died, you can begin to create positive memories about that person and feel as if they are still alive. O’Brien demonstrates this in his quote, “But this too is true: stories can save us. I’m forty three years old, and a writer now, and even still, right here, I keep dreaming Linda alive. And Ted Lavender too, and Kiowa, and Curt Lemon, and a slim young man I killed, and an old man sprawled beside a pigpen, and several others whose bodies I once lifted and dumped into a truck.”, he still thinks of them alive.

Many authors use storytelling as a vehicle to convey the immortality of past selves and those who have passed to not only in their piece of literature but in their life as an author. In Tim O’Brien’s work of fiction The Things They Carried, through his final chapter “The Lives of the Dead,” O 'Brien conveys that writing is a matter of survival since, the powers of storytelling can ensure the immortality of all those who were significant in his life. Through their immortality, O’Brien has the ability to save himself with a simple story. Through snippets of main plot event of other chapters, O’Brien speaks to the fact the dead have not actually left; they are gone physically, but not spiritually or emotionally. They live on in memories as Linda lives on in the memories of O’Brien and as many of his war buddies live on through his stories. He can revive them and bring them back to the world through his writings and through these emotions or events he experienced with them and with their deaths can make them immortal. Through the reminiscent stories of Linda and O’Brien’s war companions and himself, O’Brien conveys that storytelling allows people to reanimate others who have died and past selves to create an immortality of humans.

Antwone "Fish" Fisher is a complex individual who has been through a great deal of psychological and sociological conflicts in his short life. His mother was arrested and then abandons him, he was abused physically and emotional, and then lived on the streets. In short, nearly everything bad that can possible happen to a person has happened to young Antwone Fisher before he has reached adulthood. In his autobiographical book Finding Fish (2001), Fisher explains how the torment that he experienced in his youth shaped the man that he would become in adulthood. Although this story tells about one young man's difficulties in life and how he had to overcome obstacles in order to be a functional and positive member of society, it is really a story about the larger human condition and how every person becomes affected by their experiences.

The inciting incident is where the story all begin, the fight at Will’s wedding is a point of focus for the conflict and sets up the central dramatic question of how can this father and son relationship reconcile? And by the time his father is dying, the question will be and this father and son reconcile in that time and before his father die? Big fish has two parallel stories is Edward in the past and Will in the present. At the moment where Edward leave the small town of Ashton along with Karl the giants is doesn’t have much to do with the central dramatic ideal and question of the movie. But it is a more significant moment, young Edward no longer fears death and the in the present Edward is now dying from cancer. The first culmination is Edward and Sandra romance, Edward spend quite lot of times quest to find Sandra. In the mean time in the present, William suspects his father has been cheating, and may have found proof. The main culmination is when will clean out his father’s office and sees a document about Jenny from Specter. He thinks that this is a woman who his father had an affair. He drove to Specter to meet Jenny, Jenny told Will that his father has been faithful to his mother, Will would finally have a conversation to his father but his father can’t, he had a stroke. The part at the hospital, Edward wake up and telling his son how he dies but panics and he is unable to tell the story. So Will takes over his father’s storytelling and begins telling an amazing fantastical story of how his father will die. This is the crucial moment. Will have to create one of his father’s stories on the

For the past few weeks, I have analyzed the storytelling style of the book and film Big Fish. The biggest difference I noticed was that I thought that the book focused more on the telling of Edwards inane stories, while the film was mostly centered around character development and relationships. I also think that while the book was very euphoric and felt like a children’s bedtime story, the film took a much more mystical and mysterious route, where a childish feel was dormant. Lastly, I thought that in the book the author just threw all the stories together and told them

Storytelling, in many ways, allows one to express their imagination through fanciful adventures and tales; thus, serving a purpose in terms of allowing an individual to cope with their tragedies, but also to entertain one another. In Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, and in Tim Burton’s Big Fish, the audience comes to realize that the conflict between fact and truth, combined with storytelling, are the central themes; it becomes clearer that facts have to be proven, whereas the truth is usually straightforward. These stories focus around the protagonists’ views, teaching the value, truth, and purpose of storytelling; in which, it is the pieces that collectively form the importance of storytelling. Storytelling allows the protagonists of both stories to cope with their struggles, and assists them in overcoming their adversities. It partly influences their decisions, and ideas; ultimately, changing their own perspectives in their struggles. Both show that stories can be incredibly meaningful and take on significant roles for the characters, which can be used to answer important questions about the truth.

Once there was a woman who told a story. However, she had more than just an entertaining tale to tell. She chose common images that everyone would understand, and she wrapped her story around them, and in this way she was able to teach the people . . .

Storytelling helps other people to emotionally connect themselves to the author so that they know they are not the only ones who are experiencing a painful or exciting experience, and are able to share the same emotions. It often helps other people to know what they should do in order to get over it when it comes to a painful experience. Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings explores the life of Maya Angelou and the struggles she has been throughout her childhood to her adulthood. Richard Wagemese’s Indian Horse explores the life of Saul Indian Horse and the struggles he has been through after departing from his family. The power of storytelling can unfold questions which ask the audience of how and why are the events are unfold the