Between Mediocrity and Greatness: Edward Bloom’s Extraordinary Pastures
Exploring the pursuit of greatness and acceptance of mediocrity
When I was an undergrad at NSULA in Natchitoches, Louisiana, one of my favorite electives was “Film and Folklore”, taught by the great Dr. Shane Rasmussen, who also heads the Louisiana Folklife Center. In the midst of a massive computer cleanup, I stumbled on my final paper for that course. It focused on a comparative analysis of the film Big Fish (2003) and the book on which it was based, Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions, by Daniel Wallace. I’ve made some edits to the essay in order to clarify some points where I might have, as a student in the course, assumed too much knowledge of the topic.
Mediocrity is the destiny of the fearful. Greatness is the destiny of the fearless. Greatness is unknown to those who do not take risks. With what we know right now, we can make a choice, and that choice will affect the future for better or worse. How we deal with the outcome determines whether we are mediocre or great. If we are frightened into inactivity or numbness, there is no chance for us to become great.
This leads to the question of how to define greatness. As an old man, nearing the end of his life, Edward Bloom asked his son William what he thought makes a man great. William said, perhaps with some resentment, that if a man was loved by his son, then he was a great man. But those were not the perimeters Edward was looking for. He never explicitly told us what he thought makes a man great. Perhaps he did not know, or perhaps it ought to have been implicit, but throughout his life he never stopped searching for the answer. He never gave up and said, “Well, that’s it; I’ve had enough.” He never had enough.
Ashland (renamed “Ashton” in the Tim Burton-directed adaptation) was too small for this big fish. Edward had exhausted all of its opportunities. What more is there to do after the giant is tamed, thus completely one of his many impressive accomplishments? The hero, in search of more adventures, had nothing to do but to make his grand departure into the unknown. There was only one way out of Ashland and that was to take a road through a “place with no name,” where people neither wanted to go nor stay because all they really hoped for was an exit in pursuit of their dreams. Yet before they could do that, they had to be tested. The problem was that the Place with No Name filled them with fear. Their fear trapped them, making them stuck and draining all hope from their brains. They settled in and “got used to things,” even to the disappointment of not having the life of their dreams. They could not even go back to Ashland, for it was fear that drove that desire. Scared of the future, they wanted to return to the safety of the past. No one could leave the Place with No Name as long as fear had them conquered. If they closed their eyes, they could dream. They could even see the dreams Edward shared with them. But once they opened their eyes, they lost the courage to conquer their fear of the unknown.
“I’m not here to stay,” said Edward Bloom. “It’s not what I want.”1 He would never get used to settling for something he did not want. “I have to go,” he said.2 He had to go despite the scary dog who ensured the residents were constantly too fearful to venture beyond the boundaries of town. And then the spell was broken. With Edward’s entrance into the place, the dog had expected to feed on more fear, but the dog found something in Edward even better. The dog would not eat this big fish. This big fish was too great and the dog was delighted with him. This was the fish, mentioned at the beginning of the film in Ewan McGregor’s narration, that could not be caught. (McGregor plays Young Edward in the film. Albert Finney plays Old Edward.) He was “touched with something extra.” Is it extra stubbornness? Is it extra restlessness?
In the film, there are two roads (instead of just the one in the book) which lead out of Edward Bloom’s hometown. The film also changes the name of the town from Ashland to Ashton. The one road, taken by Karl the Giant, is the easy road because it is newly paved. The other road, which Edward chooses, is old and overgrown. Edward takes the hard road, the one, unsurprisingly, much less, or almost never traveled. It is the shortcut to the middle place, his first test. This place is represented in the film as Spectre, where the grass is brilliantly green and the ground is so soft no one needs to wear shoes. But he arrives early. No one expects him. He is a spontaneous arrival, and that never happens in this place. The film conflates the Place with No Name and Spectre, the deserted town Edward eventually buys. He is early to arrive at one, late to arrive at the other. Edward is never predictable. He must come and go as he pleases.
Contentment, more than fear, is the evil in the film. Contentment is the drug that has the people of Spectre in a trance. But instead of a hopeless, sad kind of trance, as seen in the book, in the film it is a happy one. Everything tastes better in Spectre because it is drugged. It is not fear, taking the form of a dog robbing people of their limbs, that keeps them stuck. Instead, in the film, contentment, brought on by a state of dulled consciousness, keeps them stuck. They take off their shoes and hang them on a power line over the grass. Why wear shoes? The town provides soft, unnaturally green grass to walk on. There is no danger here. There is no risk. The people of Spectre choose safety and comfort.
Jenny Hill takes Edward’s shoes and adds them to the multitude of shoes tied to the power line. This is another example of the film’s use of conflation. Jenny Hill, swamp girl, becomes the drug, the medicine for fear and depression, and the temptation to have a long life of mediocrity in one artificially happy place. She is also the dog who wants something more, but settles with consuming the fear of passers-through.
Norther Winslow, a poet, is stuck in the fear of failure. He is also so contented that he is completely void of inspiration. Inspiration comes to those who are engaged in the struggle of living, not those who are drugged into complacency. Without a challenge, there can be no inspiration. There is nothing inspirational about a place where everyone eats pie everyday, sits in a rocking chair everyday, and dances barefoot every night on soft, green grass. These might be pleasant experiences, but they are not a good stories—nor do these experiences lead to evolution and wisdom. A good story is about a person who takes the hard road, even if it means having blistered feet…who lives to tell the tale. That is a great story. That kind of story inspires people to overcome their fears and manifest dreams. After all, as Vladimir Propp informs us, the indispensable features of a great story—of greatness—involve departure, struggle, sin, danger, rescue, and redemption.3 Edward Bloom experiences all of these.
Why does Edward stay as long as he does in this middle place? Even in the book, as he repeatedly asserts his intention of just passing through, he lingers. He walks around, taking a prolonged tour of the place. He lingers at the Good Food Cafe. In the film, his stay is even more extended. We have the sense that, like the others, he wrestles with the temptations of ease and comfort. Anyone would be tempted to stay in such a place. This place is idealized suburbia…realized! Yet he is unique in that he is simultaneously tempted by the unknown—equally (?) by danger and safety. In the film, he sits on the edge of the lake when he has the vision of the naked lady. The snake creeping up towards her adds to his temptation. He is tempted not only by the woman’s sexuality, but also by the creeping danger. He gets both—both conquest and gratification by playing the hero to a damsel in distress.
Eight-year-old Jenny warns Edward about the leeches in the swamp. The naked lady of the lake, which turns out to be a mermaid, lives in the dangerous swamp under the threat of leeches and snakes. Yet she will always conquer her fears—because she, like Edward, is a big fish. She is, actually, the big fish he aspires to emulate. In Spectre, no more than in Ashland, Edward Bloom will never be contented, or at least he will not stay contented. He is powerfully tempted by the search and struggle toward greatness. The suburban, never-changing paradise appeals to him, but change, or rather variety, is Edward’s addiction. Jenny, in love with him already at the age of eight, is inspired by his courage—he killed the snake that threatened to kill the mermaid. Jenny will grow up to be the swamp girl, waiting for her hero’s return.
He promises Jenny that he will return someday. In the film, he said that he would return at the time when he should have arrived in the first place. (Recall that he had actually arrived early.) In the book, he returns to Spectre at various times when his “other life”—the life he built for his wife and son—becomes intolerably boring. In the film, as he leaves the town, he is warned that he will never find a better place. He says he does not expect to. He does not even want a better place. He is not searching for greener grass, just different grass. The price of safety is a fate worse than death for Edward. Greatness is the only acceptable fate.
Although, in the film, he says he would “end up” (finally settle) at Spectre someday, that his shoes had merely gotten ahead of him, he never does “end up” anywhere. He is incapable of being contented at home with his wife and son. He is incapable even of being contented in Spectre with Jenny Hill. Jenny wants him to stay with her. His wife and son want him to stay with them, but he can do neither.4
Many people are stuck in mediocrity by their fear of failure. They will only move if there is a certainty of success. But that certainty does not exist. If one will not move in spite of the scary dog or the possibility of blistered feet, one will be mediocre forever. One will be, therefore, only a spectre—a ghost, a shadow, a half—of one's potential. Edward Bloom knew that as a college kid in Auburn, Alabama—or, if we follow the plot in the film, he knew it as an indentured servant of the circus. “Dreams are what keep a man going,” his son William was told of him, “and already your father was dreaming empire.”5 He could not be human if he did not feel the fear that everyone feels of the future; yet, he was absolutely resolved to face that fear. He would not even fear death.
While the sight of their own future death in the witch’s glass eye terrified everyone else, Edward made a point of avoiding the fear of his death. He decided it would be prudent to look into the eye and know the how and the when of his fatality, for that knowledge, he reasoned, would protect him from the fear. He never wanted to die because he loved living too much, but he would never allow himself to accept the all-too common fear of dying.
In the film, ironically on his death bed, Old Edward tells his pregnant daughter-in-law (Marion Cotillard) about his ability to predict people’s deaths. As a child, he would see a person’s death in his dreams and the next day, that person would actually die.6 One time, he saw his father’s death in his dreams and told his father. His father had a horrible day because of the constant expectation of death, but at the end of the day, it was the milkman who died. The “joke,” of course, was that the milkman was Edward’s biological father, but there is a very serious lesson in how the elder Bloom handled the younger Bloom’s prediction. It is opposite to how Edward lived. Unlike his father, Edward never lived in fear of dying, even after he knew how and when it would occur. He went forward in spite of the fear. Instead of letting the fear consume him, instead of letting it keep him in place, he overcame it.
Time keeps ticking regardless of our motion or our stillness. In the film, Edward Bloom says, “They say when you meet the love of your life, time stops, and that’s true.” It is not true. Nor is it true that “times flies when you’re having fun.” But it feels true. When Edward Bloom saw Sandra7 for the first time, his attention was arrested. Time itself did not actually stop. He did. He stopped only long enough to decide that she was his prize. Once that was decided, he was in motion again, working to claim his prize. This is the reward of the “princess” Propp referred to. If we use Propp’s seven character functions,8 placing Edward as the prince, Sandra his princess, then Mr. Calloway must be the helper. Mr. Calloway gives Edward the clues he requires to further his quest for the reward of his princess.
Edward Bloom has, in fact, two princesses. He provides for them in equal measure. For Sandra, he buys the American Dream of 1950s suburbia: the house surrounded by unnaturally green grass and a white picket fence. For Jenny Hill, he renovates her crooked swamp house into a beautiful house with green shutters and a white picket fence. Edward Bloom transformed Jenny’s swamp into Utopia!
One princess was not enough for this hero. Like the Siamese twins, Ping and Jing, who need “twice the man,” Edward Bloom needs more than any single woman can give. What he needs more of, constantly, is something, anything else than what he has. Being stagnant depresses him. William (played by Billy Crudup) tells us that his father was never happy at home. But out of the darkness, Edward Bloom sparkles again in the stories he tells. In real life, lying on his deathbed telling jokes and stories, he is pitiful. He has to console himself with stories of being anywhere else, with anyone else, and nothing can be ordinary. Because he has to move, he cannot just be a salesman. He has to be a traveling salesman. That is still a very ordinary career, so he has to spice it up—with a bank robbery and extraordinary encounters with great and famous men. He cannot even have a “normal” midlife crisis. The proverbial sports car is too mediocre, too ordinary. The cure of his existential agony is to buy a town.
Direct quote from the book, page 42 of the original paperback edition from Algonquin Books, 2012.
Wallace, Daniel. Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions. Chapel Hill: Algonquin, 1998.
ibid., page 48.
Propp, Vladimir. Morphology of the Folk Tale. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968.
Doesn’t this recall the Old Man (and also Eddie) in Sam Shepard’s Fool for Love?
The book (see notes 1 & 2) on page 51
The female protagonist in a Kindle Vella story I particularly appreciate also has the terrifying ability the “see” death in her dreams. I reviewed that story in my other Substack newsletter:
Young Sandra in the film is portrayed by Alison Lohman; Older Sandra is portrayed by Jessica Lange.
See note 3