Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Broken in Two
Brown Eyes:
Thanks for that Lee. I've always thought that the Thresher detail was something that could be "researched" in greater depth to try to figure out why that very specific (and somewhat odd or seemingly out of place) detail is so prominently mentioned in the story.
Penthesilea:
--- Quote from: atz75 on March 21, 2008, 11:04:00 am ---Thanks for that Lee. I've always thought that the Thresher detail was something that could be "researched" in greater depth to try to figure out why that very specific (and somewhat odd or seemingly out of place) detail is so prominently mentioned in the story.
--- End quote ---
From the story:
"They had a high-time supper by the fire, [...], talking horses and rodeo [...] the submarine Thresher lost two months earlier with all hands and how it must have been in the last doomed minutes, [...]."
This is one hell of a run-on sentence. It's a whole paragraph's length. It covers much ground: what they did, what they ate, how they sat and what they talked about (daily talk about ususal things as well as personal stuff!). It says so much about their relationship with each other, their growing intimacy, without explicit naming it.
Back to the Thresher: the mentioning of the Thresher and especially the wording of how it must have been in those last doomed minutes leads my thoughts into a quite unpleasant direction. It makes me think of Jack and how it must have been for him in those last doomed minutes (whichever way it was).
:(
Also is the Thresher one of surprisingingly many marine referrences. Surprising for a story set in Wyoming. FRont-Ranger opened a thread about it.
What brings me to a remark by Marcia (or was it Mouk?), that the Thresher was not named after the agricultural device, but after the Thresher Shark. And we do find a "real estate shark" in the prolog of the story.
Front-Ranger:
Wow, you remember that old thread? I think I found it on page four here!
It is The Hidden Ocean.
Thanks, Chrissi!!
Penthesilea:
Oh, one more thing: the mention of the Thresher lets us know when this conversation took place: it was in June, since the Thresher sunk in April and it was "two months ago".
It was the day after they traded jobs, but a while before they became lovers.
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on March 21, 2008, 11:51:36 am ---Wow, you remember that old thread? I think I found it on page four here!
It is The Hidden Ocean.
Thanks, Chrissi!!
--- End quote ---
Yup, I do remember :) Will reread it later. Thanks for the link.
Front-Ranger:
A good point, Chrissi.
Here is something that ProwlAmongUs wrote on another thread in the Open Forum:
--- Quote ---As a farm boy (who listened endlessly to my dad and granddad) the analogy of reaping and threshing is ominous. A reaper was a machine that was used to cut grain, that is, to mow/cut it down. Later, technology expanded to include a "drop reaper" - a machine that combined the functions of cutting the grain and binding the bundles with twine/rope to be picked up later and taken to the "threshing machine." This is where the grain was separated from the hulls or chaff, literally by being pounded and pummeled. Of course, by 1963 all these functions were integrated into a "combine" - one machine that does it all from cutting to separating the grain. A variation of "thresh" is "thrash." "Thrashed to within an inch of his life..." For Jack, a gloomy instance of foreshadowing.
--- End quote ---
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