Tyler van Opstal "Strangers that are known very well"

    In Big Fish (2003), a frustrated William Bloom describes the relationship between himself and his father as being that of "strangers that know each other very well." This relationship and his thoughts on it are also a topic of the song "Stranger" from the 2013 musical adaptation of Big Fish. This strangeness, which is felt in both ways- William has certainly failed to hear his father's stories, but father Edward has also failed to be a storyteller that William can understand- is only resolved in the end, when the pair is able to communicate through a story they can both understand. 

    Their failures to understand each other is not entirely due to lack of effort, but William and Edward both believe they are making an effort that the other is not responding with. In the early song "Stranger," William asserts that "I'll try, I'll really try... to see brighter days for Dad and me... so that strangers we will be no more," but even then he shows his lack of understanding about what it is causing the divide, singing his insistence that he will teach his son in the present sense, not in stories- which he never understood. He believes that he will be able to bridge the gap between himself and Edward by facing his father "like a man and not a child," erroneously believing this means confronting Edward outside of stories. Yet Edward misunderstands his child's resentment, believing that by bringing his stories home he has been a good father despite his often absence from William's life ("Slay the Dragons") and frustratedly accusing his son in a dream sequence (absent from the movie but appreciated in the musical) of being "the one imperfect son who overreacts! ("Showdown")"

    Each nears the end of the movie and musical believing it is the other who has not budged, "He only sees what he invents! He only sees the black and white! Only believe in the pre-tense! And always wants to start a fight! He doesn't change! He doesn't stay! ... And though I can't change him, someday he'll regret this river between us" ("This River Between Us, William/Edward/Both)

    While they manage to find each other in the end, the problem they suffer throughout the story is that they see each other in an I-It relationship as defined by Buber. For the majority of the story, Edward and William both make little effort to see each other as real people. William sees in Edward only a father unwilling to make real honest communication. Edward sees in William a son unwilling to listen to stories that mean more to him than anything else he could say. Both are looking for something in the other that isn't there, and are of course unsatisfied because they cannot find it. They are only able to connect when, at the very end, they see as I-Thou. William realizes that his father has been communicating truth to him and Edward realizes that William's failures were not born out of some inadequacy, and they both see that the other is a real person and not only something that exists as an object in relation to them.
 



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