IB Big Fish IB

[TOKprof]

Coltrane, I agree that women are made to look like damsels in this novel, but I don't know if Sandra is covered by that. Sure, she's rescued from Don Price, but she also has the strength to rear her son with virtually no help from Edward. Any parent knows the "strength" required there. She also tries to protect William from Ed's death in at least half of the death takes.

So is Wallace saying that a woman's greatest strengths are as the muse (in the case of the Neried) and as the mother (in Sandra's case)? In both cases, while still demeaning on some level, Wallace seems to me to identifying a power in women that he thinks (or at least William thinks) men simply can't possess.

[coltrane]

I heard a rumor that maybe the nymph/mermaid is a stand in for the Greek goddesses who used to protect their favorite mortals. Athena and Odysseus, Aphrodite and Paris, Anonymous Sea Nymph and Edward Bloom. So, yeah, there's power for ya.

I did see a real strength in Sandra Templeton-Bloom, too. She chose Edward, probably defied a number of family traditions in eloping with him, and in the "My Father's Death" chapters is a real Southern lady of class and grace-under-pressure, strong without saying much.

And I'm pretty sure Jenny Hill is a stand-in for Calypso, also a strong woman from mythology who learned the lesson, "If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it is yours. Either that, or Poseidon blows it back to you, and by then you were over it anyway, and you throw it back." By the time Edward came back to Jenny, she was back in her "swamp" or at least had brought the swamp to her, and was over her love for him.

So I was a little off in that damsel in distress theory, except that I think Edward would like for them to be damsels in distress, but they are more complicated than he thinks.

[TOKprof]

Umm...Coltrane, one thing that we focus on in my class is that anyone is allowed to think anyone else is crazy, but he/she must offer reasons for his/her assesment.

I'm just sayin'...

OK, now Coltrane's changed his post, so I can't stand by the previous comment. But I'll keep it up for entertainment purposes.

[Cerebus]

I didn't like the book at all because to me Wallace got caught up in his myths and didn't really pay attention to the main storyline. The book in my opinion is about a guy who is on death bed and he starts telling his son so called stories from his past which most have hints to mythical figures or have characters that are similar or were based on them. To conclude it was a book of myths and I didn't like that much.

[Neo93]

So Neo93, I heard that you had a question about a Poseidon-like character in the novel.
Can you give me a little more info on exactly which scene you are talking about, so I can look it up for myself?

I noticed a possible poseidon charcter in the chapter "In which he has a dream" which begins on page 133. The point at which I first noticed possible mythology was about midway on page 135. This chapter had that strange sense of unreality that I've started to notice is a common thread among works with dream scenes, but here's the passage I used:

"But in the middle of it all sat in older man in a lawn chair, overseeing everything. I'd never seen him before to my knowledge (or so went my father's dream) but he looked somehow familiar--a stranger, and yet no foreigner to me...He had a thick white beard and glasses, and he wore a fishing cap, in which several handmade lures were pinned. And so as he seemed to be some kind of leader, I went to see him first" (Wallace 135).

I'm kind of embarrased to mention it, but one of the reasons I identified this guy as Poseideon was because I've also read the Perseus Jackson series, a children's series that modernizes some greek mythology and creates a story similar to the original myths. In the story, poseidon is personified and characterized in a really similar way. I also noticed throughout this chapter that there were a lot of Poseidenesque (that is an awesome word) comments made by this man. I have to admit that I don't even know most of the main greek gods and goddesses, so I'm no mythology authority, but this jumped out at me for some strange reason.

thanks for your interest!

[Neo93]

That mhamley person sounds pretty. I like her!

On another note...

For all you TOK people out there, consider the passage on p. 151 where Wiley corrects Edward, claiming, "I won't bring up that patch of ground with the shack on it between where the road stops and the lake starts that just might be hard to find by foot or car or to see from the air, and just might not be on any map, or how whoever owns it has a piece of paper you've never seen to sign, Mr. Bloom. Because you and Al have all the truth with you over there. Don't know what I'm talking about, I guess. My apologies to you who knows better."

Anyone care to take a stab at all the wonderful TOK elements of this passage?

Ah, TOK is following me. I guess it's a good thing that I am comforted by the (possible) existence of something.

Since L'EngleLover already did a good job of covering K = JTB in this passage, I'll take a shot at analyzing it using the "good reasons for knowledge".

1. Sense perception- Here, both al and Ed use sense perception as justification/evidence for thier claim that Ed owns the entire town. Basically, they have evidence that there isn't a house there because they have never percieved it and have no evidence to the contrary. Wiley challenges this justification by making the very valid argument that thier perception could have been flawed, as it was.

2. Logic- neither party explicitly points to logic as evidence for thier case, althou8gh it is undoubtedly occuring beneath the surface of the passage.

(skip Intuition and self awareness for now)

5. Memory- Both parties are using thier memories of the layout of the town, their mental map, to evaluate the likelihood of Wiley being truthful. although memory can be flawed, it sevres as a good basis for knowledge because it just adds more evidence.

6. Authority- this basis for knowledge is extremely important here, because as the former sheriff, Wiley has very intimate knowledge of the town of Specter. In fact you might even call him an authority. In this situation, Wiley gains credibility because of his long history in the town, where Ed has only arrived recently. This basis of knowledge exerts such a strong pull on Edward that he launches an effort to discover the truth, and finds that Wiley's knowledge satisfied K = JTB while his did not.

7. Consensus Gentium- this plays an equally strong part in this situation. While Wiley has the strength of authority as a basis for his knowledge, Ed has Consensus Gentium because of the support of Al. Basically, Ed's thought processes are "if Al knows that I own the whole town, and I know it too, that makes it more likely to be true".

There are a couple of my thoughts about this passage. Now I'm going to attempt to prove that my homework is not the "something" that exists.

[TOKprof]

Neo,

Excellent answer with this one. I'm especially impressed with your #6. Well done!

Now, I'm most interested in one line of the passage: "Because you and Al have all the truth with you over there."

I mean, that line, to me, is just begging to be talked about. L'EngleLover has already explored it a bit, but I think there might be more to say. Any takers?

[TOKprof]

Another comment from L'EngleLover that I just love:

"Or godlike anyway, having created this life, haing panted the magic seed" (121)
---This passage reminded me of The Great Gatsby and how Jay Gatsby created himself and was about "his father's business", deeming him a Christ figure. Just as Gatsby transformed himself from poor James Gatz to millionaire in order to achieve his dreams of wealth and Daisy, Edward Bloom creates his ideal image of himself in his stories, desiring to become a "great man."

This is great stuff, and L'Engle, who I know has some knowledge of the Platonic ideal and "form," has touched on something that I think we can really explore. To what extent is Ed seeking his Platonic form? But maybe more interestingly, to what extent does Ed's "form" depend on William's PERCEPTION of Ed? Can our ideal self only happen because of someone else? Hmmm...

[mzmarymack]

It seems as though, in Ed's dying days, nothing is more important than being remembered. More specifically, being remembered as Super Dad: strong, compassionate, heroic, righteous, clever, etc. Therefore, Will's perception of his dad is everything. These outrageous tales of Ed serve to personify Ed's good characteristics into superpowers. The kryptonite in this story is time. Time is hindering Ed from becoming his Platonic form. Time that Ed should have spent with Will is being put to better use. Instead of being Will's dad, Ed was saving the world: a little girl from a devil dog, a town from a giant, a lady's glass eye from young thieves, etc. Yeah, that kinda sucks that Ed chose the world over Will, but it's justified.

[TOKprof]

mzmarymack,

Why do you think's Ed's choosing "the world over Will" is justified? That's an interesting conclusion.

I wonder how Edward thought to balance his many versions of his own Platonic form. Was his goal really to be "Super Dad" or was it to be the mythical hero of the world? Can he be both at the same time? And even if William ultimately "believes in" but doesn't "believe" Ed's Platonic form, has William really duped himself into thinking Edward was a better father than he was? Granted, this book was set in a time period where there were different expectations of fathers than there are today. Edward's job would have been to provide for his family, which financially he seems to do, even if emotionally he does not.

[mzmarymack]

Okay question:
Why is it okay for Ed to have two wives? I mean he marries Jenny, right?
Do you think that this shows the separation b/w the real world, where he marries Sandy, and the unreal world, where he marries Jenny?

I think it's justified to Will because...
Some people will accept when crappy things happen to them, but they won't be willing to accept the same for another person. Is that confusing?
Like you accept the fact that your mom is a teacher and she is going to go harder on you than any other student. However, it doesn't seem as fair if your friend's mom, who is a teacher, grades your friend more harshly.
Will seems like that kind of guy.

It makes Ed happy to be deemed a good father. His true goal, though? Ed seems like the person who will go out of his way to make others happy at his own expense. But this doesn't apply to his own family. So I think Ed wants to be remembered as exceptional. A great person. He wants to amaze the world. I think he's going for the shock effect. For example, there's integrity and character, and then there's Ed's integrity. I'm referring to the scene when he was determined to sweep the floor while he was bleeding. He refused to accept any help. That's pride to an extreme

[mhamley]

Neo93
I think you've got something with that being a Poseidon character, especially since Wallace admittedly bases much of Big Fish on The Odyssey.

Check out these interviews with Wallace on the novel:
http://johnaugust.com/archives/2004/...daniel-wallace
http://www.strangehorizons.com/2004/...allace-a.shtml