Reisz Big Fish

Edward Bloom

            I particularly enjoyed the juxtaposition between the sunny Edward Bloom and the somewhat darker character inhabiting Big Fish. The commonalities that the characters Edward Bloom ran into was that they were all rather misunderstood. Most people run away in disgust or ignorant fear; however, Bloom is not afraid (after all he knows how he is going to die) and takes the time to get to know the darker creatures. For example, the young boys run from the scary looking witch but Bloom stays and talks to her. Another example would be the giant who seems frightening at first but is simply a kind and misunderstood creature. Edward Bloom is such a sunny character because of his wide-eyed optimism towards life and people. He says during the werewolf scene that, “most things that you consider evil or wicked are simply lonely” (1:06:45). This understanding for outcasts and those who are misunderstood merges any creature with Bloom despite any personality differences. Edward himself likes them because they are so much greater than life, like him. He also has a compassionate heart that enjoys helping those in need. Bloom displays this by helping the giant find a home and saving Spectre free of charge.

However, a good heart is not enough to link together Bloom with such dark creatures. Another important factor is Edward Bloom’s grander-than-life personality. One would expect no ordinary creature in his fantasies. This personality matches directly with Burton’s real-life father who Burton has said was, “a real fairy-tale character.” Although Bloom is an average man, he was a great fairy-tale character through his fantasies and in his mind’s eye. I think that Burton took on Big Fish as a sort of homage to his father. Burton always loves tying in his personal life and emotions into his work, which I think can clearly be seen by the final mutual understanding between father and son. Perhaps Burton wished that he had the opportunity to reach this mutual understanding with his own father before he passed. Burton’s love for his father combined with his admiration for the strange and unusual, like Edward Bloom’s fantasies, can be seen through his work in the heart-wrenching film Big Fish.

Tim Burton Quote on Big Fish

Reisz The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories, "Robot Boy"

Burton's "Robot Boy" Illustrations

           Of all the poems in The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories, “Robot Boy” may tie into Carl Jung’s ideas and relate to Tim Burton’s life the most. Robot Boy perfectly symbolizes Burton as a child. He felt that his parents did not love him and would do better without him. He did not fit into the perfect mold of suburbia that his parents wanted him in, which made him feel like an outsider. Robot Boy has the same problem as the poem describes his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, so happy before him. With robot boy’s birth, his parents’ problems were revealed and they could no longer live in ignorant bliss together. Perhaps Burton’s own desire for self-expression made his parents unpleasant as well since they had no creative spark in dull suburbia. Like in Edward Scissorhands, the unknown scares the uninteresting suburban people so they simply cast aside people like Edward, Robot Boy, and Burton. Readers also see Burton’s neuroses about abandonment as robot boy, who we relate to as Tim Burton, loses his parents completely as they cast him aside as a garbage can. 

           Mr. and Mrs. Smith’s selfish and unaccepting fallacies are highlighted with their reaction to their child when they really should blame Mrs. Smith’s unfaithfulness and accept their child. The most important part of the story, however, is the final quatrain that reads, “And Robot Boy/ grew to be a young man./ Though he was often mistaken/ for a garbage can.” Applying Jung’s ideas here, readers see Burton relieve some of the pain developed from the abandonment and sense of being an outsider. The collective unconscious that Jung ideology promotes is the part of the unconscious that all human participate in and belief that the self, or conscious psyche, seeking individuation, or wholeness. He believed that there were “archetypes of transformation” on the path towards wholeness. We see these transformations in robot boy as he lay there not quite dead or alive in the beginning of the story but by the end has become a young man. Although his parents continue to treat him like a trashcan, life went on. This reflects Jung’s belief in transcendence and death being a part of life because it illustrates that, despite struggles and others’ lack of acceptance, life goes on. Robot boy’s parents fit the archetype of the wicked stepmother, like Burton’s parents somewhat represented to him, which is seen as a negative in stories. However, the shadow side of the psyche is something that one must simply come to terms with and integrate so that he may become whole, which is exactly the path that robot boy, and therefore Burton, is on as he has become a young man and realizes that we grow as life goes on.