Big Fish is a magical realism film about how a son tries to connect with his father before he dies by reliving stories and myths his father has told throughout his life. All throughout Will’s life, his father told outrageous stories and in a way, the stories outweighed Will. Will’s father was rarely ever home, and when he was, all he did was tell his famous stories over and over again. Not only did Edward over-tell his stories, but they were remarkable and in a sense, magical. The stories were unbelievable and while Will enjoyed them in his youth, as he grew older, he started to hate them more and more. The stories angered Will because he wanted to really know his dad, and all he really, truly knew about him was his stories. As Will grew up into a young man, he and his father grew apart until the point where they rarely even talked, and when Will got news that his father was dying, he decided it was time to mend their broken bond. Will returns back home to his mother’s and father’s house to do so, and when he first arrives he tries to talk to his dad. He tells his dad that he feels like he doesn’t really know him, or anything about his past, because all he knows are his stories, and he doesn’t find any truth in those stories because they have magical elements to them. To that, Edward explains that his stories are what he is, a storyteller. Will is a reporter meaning he only relays the absolute facts, whereas, his father is a story teller, who takes a story and makes it more elaborate by adding details and stretching the truth a bit. Will doesn’t understand this part of his father’s stories because he is so dead set of facts and believes all his father’s stories are lies in their entirety because they include some exaggerations. His dad and him live in two different worlds, but these worlds are actually closer related than either of them believe. Will is a reporter, and while reporters focus mainly on the facts, they also include a variation of a narrative in their work, and therefore, Will is more like his dad than he thinks. Will tries to relive his father’s stories to attempt to understand his father but he still sees them as lies. It isn’t until he really looks into their factuality that he learns that parts of them are definitely true and parts of them are magical exaggerations that make the moral of the story, and the story itself more memorable and impactful. It isn’t until Will’s father is on his deathbed, and unable to talk that Will starts to understand everything. Edward has suffered from a stroke and is in the hospital about to die. He is unable to speak at length so he asks Will to tell him the story of his death, and Will does just that, executing a flawless story that connected to all of his father’s stories. Edward died knowing that his son finally understands his love for storytelling and at his funeral Will realizes the truth in all of his father’s stories. Then, when Will’s son is born, he re-accounts the stories to his own child and tells him that his father is his stories, which enables his father to live on forever. After his father’s death, Will came to respect the art of storytelling, instead of despising it like before, and when he had his own son, he passed down his father’s stories. By passing down his father’s stories, Will becomes a storyteller just like his dad, and also allows his father’s legacy to live on. Will’s full name is Will Bloom, which is clearly a play on words. Will starts out not understanding his father and his love for stories, but with time, he grew to understand and respect his father’s passion and when he had his own child, pursues it himself. Will bloomed into a storyteller and allowed his father to live on forever with him, and everyone else by retelling his stories.
A
Very Old Man with Enormous Wings is another magical realism piece, and it
is just as beautiful and wonderful as Big
Fish. It is a story about a family that withstood a massive storm, and in
the wreckage, found an angle in their garden. Right from the start it is clear
this story has magical elements because angles don’t just show up in real life
and the storm is described in almost a mystical, fairytale way. The homeowners,
Pelayo and Elisenda, hold the angle captive in the chicken coop and charge
people to come and look at him. The story takes place in a normal, practical
setting, but the magical element of the angle ties the world of reality and the
magical world together to present points. One of the multiple morals that can
be taken from the story is the fact of how naïve and stupid people are
sometimes. The homeowners had such a miracle in front of them and they failed
to realize it because they based the angles importance and authenticity on his appearance.
Their thoughts on the angle were, “There were only a few faded hairs left on
his bald skull and very few teeth in his mouth, and his pitiful condition of a
drenched great-grandfather took away any sense of grandeur he might have had.
His huge buzzard wings, dirty and half-plucked were forever entangled in the
mood. They looked at him so long and so closely that Pelayo and Elisenda very
soon overcame their surprise and in the end found him familiar” (Marquez 1).
This shows how stupid they are because they have such an amazing miracle placed
at their feet, and they feel like the angle has no importance and he is no
better than him because they overcame their excitement and felt so familiar with
the angle after they saw what bad shape he was in. It is a common idea that
angles are white, holy, and clean and this angle was everything but, but in
truth, he was still in fact an angle. The homeowners treated the angle with no
respect whatsoever and locked him in the hen pen. Even after the angle had made
the family rich and they were set for life with all the fancy lavishes, the
family still didn’t appreciate him, or have any gratitude towards him. When the
angle recovered from his illness and flew away, “She [Elisenda] kept watching him
even when she was through cutting the onions and she kept on watching until it
was no longer possible for her to see him, because then he was no longer an
annoyance in her life but an imaginary dot on the horizon of the sea” (Marquez
5). Elisenda didn’t feel anything when the angle left, except a feeling of
relief that the angle wouldn’t be a burden anymore. After everything the angle
let the family achieve they don’t respect his existence or even acknowledge him
for what he did or what he is. After he is gone, he is referred to as an “imaginary
dot on the horizon of the sea” which goes to show the stupidity of the
homeowners. They were blessed with an old, sickly man in their garden, but that
man had the heavenly wings of a messenger. The angle brought the family so
much, and in return he didn’t even receive recognition. All of this can be
summed up by the title, A Very Old Man with
Enormous Wings: A Tale for Children. The “Very Old Man” part represents the
old age, disease, and all the frailties of an earthly creature but the “Enormous
Wings” part represents the supernatural and heavenly aspect, and the “A Tale
for Children for Children” part symbolizes the childish, naïve, unconscious persona
of human beings. Every line of this piece is beautiful and this is just a mere
scratching of the surface as to what this story actually entails.
