For this father’s day inspired article I am borrowing my title as homage to the fictitious thesis written by Robin William’s character Henry/Parry in the film The Fisher King, by writer Richard LaGravenese and director Terry Gilliam in the 1991 film starring Robin Williams, Jeff Bridges, Mercedes Ruehl and Amanda Plummer. This film involves one man’s hubris and the consequences of his arrogance on another man.
Both characters seen in this film are archetypal representations of men at different stages of their lives.
On the one side we have the innocent fool Parry who is Perceval or Parzifal depending on the version of the holy grail story that this comes from. On the other end is the Fisher King who represents the wounded father later in life who carries the pain of his past and a wound that will not kill him but also will not heal.
The Fisher King film is a retelling of Perceval: The Story of the Grail a 12th century book written by Chretien De Troyes, which is often known as the tale of the Fisher King.
This is also a Father’s Day offering and an article about fathers, sons and the father wound. In this article I’m going to thread some of my own experiences with the father wound. That means looking a little at some of my past as a son of the archetypal Fisher King, and how it affects me as the father I am, and try to be today. My life has mirrored some of the themes in this film and archetypal story and maybe in exploring it you may see your own relationship to these archetypal characters as well.
What exactly is the wound of the Fisher King?
RECEIVING THE WOUND WHICH WILL NOT HEAL
In the film it is during the cloud busting scene in central park with Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges, when Williams as Parry, recounts one version of the Fisher King tale and how he receives his wound.
In Parry’s version of the tale the young Fisher King has a vision of the Holy Grail, and he reaches into the fire to take hold of the grail and the power it wields but is instead wounded by it. At one hour into the film Parry recounts:
“…Out of the fire appears the Holy Grail, the symbol of God’s divine grace, and the voice said to the boy, you should be the keeper of the Grail so that it may heal the hearts of men, but the boy was blinded by greater visions of a life filled with power and glory and beauty. And in this state of radical amazement he felt for a brief moment not like a boy, but invincible, like God, so he reached into the fire to take the Grail, and the Grail vanished, leaving him with his hand in the fire to be terribly wounded.”
Parry seems to be speaking directly to the Fisher King wound he sees in Jack. This idea is that the young Fisher King has an early experience which burns him.
In another version of the Fisher King’s wound, he takes a bit of fish that is too hot and this wounded him, but it’s also a psychological wound, as if the Fisher King is suddenly carrying the pains of the world, from spontaneous insight.
There is wisdom and pain intertwined in this moment, which would seem to be tied to crossing a threshold from innocent boy to a man.
When Parry recounts the hubris of the Fisher King, and the wound he receives, we can see the effect of his words on Jack’s face, because he is describing Jack’s wound, we feel it because Jack is the “every-man” in this story.
In Parry’s version, Parzifal, the innocent fool is not even looking for the grail, but instead comes across the dying Fisher King and gives him water from a cup at his bedside. The Fisher King is healed, and it is revealed that the cup was the holy grail. In this version of the story the grail is reached with a humble act of compassion to the king’s suffering, rather than an act that is arrogant.
For many of us there is a wound like for Parry or Jack, that will not heal. We may also be in a relationship with a wounded Fisher King father figure, who has been wounded at some time in his life. The wounded father may be difficult for the son to find, just as it is difficult for Parzifal to find the Fisher King and his castle in the original story.
There are many types of wounds one might carry, and we cannot dismiss any of them in terms of wounding the boy who would become the man. We men may walk through life with an attachment wound, from unmet needs at some stage of development. Additionally, we may have had our emotional needs outright squashed as not being “manly.” We are taught early on “big boys don’t cry” to “walk it off” or “grow up.”
We are encouraged to grow up and be men, but we lack role models of what a good man is and we are often explicitly told not to feel anything. This is because for generations we have absorbed this idea that dad is the distant provider who pays the bills, goes to work and doesn’t even have a rich emotional life. We are essentially taught that to have emotions is weakness, and yet the go to emotion men have when they repress emotions is anger and rage.
The Fisher King may be wounded by attachment wounds, but for some it could be outright abuse that makes another kind of wound that may be along the lines of a traumatic wound. Then there may be the wound of not knowing yourself in life, and becoming lost, not knowing how to feel connected to your job, career, family. In short the wound may be around finding purpose, and knowing thyself.
The wound may simply be disillusionment, when we cross from being a boy to a man where the demands of life are sobering.
YOUR WOUNDED FISHER KING
In my own life, my wounded Fisher King was my father, who at 49 had a stroke that he would never recover from. He was the Fisher King unable to heal, and for ten years he was unable to die. His death coincided with me turning 18. What my father carried with him as the wounded Fisher King was all the loss of his life that weighed on him, all the roads that would never be taken, all the doors closed to him. Before his wound he may have carried a wound that was related to not being connected to his father, but I don’t know enough about those wounds. I know mostly about the physical wound and I know the beats of his life before he became the Fisher King. He was a husband and father. He was once a soldier in WW2. He was an engineer and airplane enthusiast like my oldest son. He too wanted to fly airplanes for the military.
When this wounding occurred though my father was severed from those dreams in his life. At this point he went inward, and there was a gradual shutting down. I wish I could say that I understood enough of what happened after the stroke, but this is part of my father wound, and what makes me the perpetual Parzifal searching for the grail that would heal the Fisher King. It is a father wound I still carry myself, that centers around having lost my father when I was 8, and then taking care of him for the next ten years, Parzifal and the Fisher King.
Because the wound of the Fisher King is deep, it affects everyone around him. In the tale of the Fisher King when he is wounded the kingdom suffers, the crops whither.
In our own lives when we receive the wound of the Fisher King things start to fall apart, jobs dry up, relationships may fail, homes may fall to ruin, businesses flounder. Despite the idea we have that father should be a distant strong provider, when he becomes the wounded Fisher King we all feel the wound deeply, and the kingdom reflects that wound even if we refuse to acknowledge it.
In trying to bring conscious awareness to the wound of the Fisher King I am trying to help bring healing to the Fisher King, to Parzifal, the land, and everyone affected by the Fisher King wound, which is all of us. We find healing by starting to turn attention to the wounds we carry, not by ignoring them or trying to obliterate our minds like Jack does as the Fisher King.
Jungian Analyst Robert A. Johnson, wrote about the Fisher King from a psychological point of view and the archetypal relationship to modern man. In He: Understanding Masculine Psychology he wrote:
“Hardly a modern man escapes this collision in his own life and he may end up in the sad state described in our story. His passion is killed and his vision is badly wounded.”
This is a powerful universal myth we find ourselves in, but there are ways to ease our burden, and find healing in life from the wounds we carry. In the film Jack is compelled to let go and give in to the mad quest. He becomes Parzifal and takes up the quest that Parry is no longer able to pursue. In doing so he opens the door to healing that is needed for them both.
In my next article I will explore more about the role of Parzifal in this myth and it’s importance for modern men.
