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Topic of the Week 4/07: Why hadn't story Lureen ever met Jack's parents?

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Penthesilea:
Happy new week, Brokies  :)!

This week, it's the first time we have a topic suggested by a BetterMostian other than Katherine or me. A big thank you to the contributor  :-*!

Also, this week's topic is not worded as a closed question. The "rules" of the TOTW are not set in stone, so if you have a question that doesn't fit into the yes/no answer scheme, bring it on anyway. We're a flexible bunch here at BetterMost  ;).


Why hadn't story Lureen ever met Jack's parents?

The screenplay follows the short story very closely, but leaves out Annie's "I never met them. They didn't come down for the funeral."  A related question might be why these two details were left out of the screenplay.
And what about Bobby? Do you think Mrs. Twist ever had a chance to get to know her only grandchild?
Let's analyze Jack's family ties.

Fran:
The "I never met them" comment by Lureen tells us that Jack's parents didn't even make it down to Texas for the wedding.  A plausible reason for this is that they couldn't leave the ranch because they don't have any help.  There's no one to fill in for them.  As to why Mrs. Twist didn't make the trip alone either for the wedding or afterwards, again this was due to economics and logistics.  Childress was just too far away.

This brings us to the queston as to why Lureen never made the trip up to Lightning Flat to meet them.  I'm going to assume that Jack and Lureen got married in a hurry; there wasn't a long engagement.  In my way of thinking, it's likely that Lureen was pregnant and there's a rush wedding.  If her first trimester was anything like the one I experienced with my first pregnancy, she's too exhausted or nauseous to think about making what would be more than a 14-hour drive to Lightning Flat.  So the meeting of Jack's parents is put off until the baby is born.  But by the time Bobby is eight months old, Jack has reunited with Ennis, and Jack uses his trips to Lightning Flat as extensions of his time with Ennis.  There's no room for Lureen and Bobby on these trips.  And once Jack had his heart set on a life with Ennis, he was already emotionally withdrawing from his life with Lureen and Bobby.  It wouldn't matter to Jack whether Lureen ever met his parents because he wasn't intending on staying with her.

The fact that Lureen says "I never met them" instead of "We never met them" gives me hope that perhaps Jack had made the trip to Lightning Flat with Bobby once he was older to introduce him to his grandparents. 

That said, I think Ossana and McMurtry were wise to leave out the "I never met them" line because it puts both Lureen and Jack in a more favorable light if she had met Jack's parents.  I can't imagine a daughter-in-law not wanting to meet her husband's parents -- at least once anyway.  If Jack was totally estranged from his parents, Lureen's never having met them would have been more likely, but that wasn't the situation.  Lureen must have had some kind of relationship with them because she did send half of Jack's ashes to them.  Why would she do that if they were virtually strangers to her? 

Penthesilea:
Wow, a whole bunch of insightful thoughts on the topic. For the moment, I just wanna reply to this part:


--- Quote from: Fran on August 20, 2007, 09:51:44 am ---That said, I think Ossana and McMurtry were wise to leave out the "I never met them" line because it puts both Lureen and Jack in a more favorable light if she had met Jack's parents.  I can't imagine a daughter-in-law not wanting to meet her husband's parents -- at least once anyway.  If Jack was totally estranged from his parents, Lureen's never having met them would have been more likely, but that wasn't the situation.  Lureen must have had some kind of relationship with them because she did send half of Jack's ashes to them.  Why would she do that if they were virtually strangers to her? 


--- End quote ---


Not because of his parents, but because of Jack. It was his wish, and she fulfilled it at least half.

Lureen: "He use to say he wanted his ashes scattered on Brokeback Mountain, but I wasn't sure where that was. I thought Brokeback Mountain might be around where he grew up."

This brings up the question why she didn't fulfill his wish fully, why she kept half of his ashes. My short guess would be it was for three reasons: 1) Jack still meant something to her, she didn't want his ashes totally gone. 2) She did it for Bobby 3) She did it because otherwise it would look strange to the neighbours, consumers, etc. and would raise a couple of questions she didn't want to answer --> = to keep up the facade.

I can picture Lureen sending up half of the ashes to his parents even if she had never any contact to them. Oh, another question comes to my mind: do you think she never had any contact at all? Apart from meeting them FTF, how about Christmas cards, phone calls, etc.?

shortfiction:
I don't think the Twists were the sort to really keep in touch with others. They probably lacked a phone and it might have been miles to go to find a pay phone.  They might have sent a short note now and then but that's it.  Texas is a long way from where they are and they tend to stick right where they live.   "We got a family plot and he's goin' in it" is an extreme example of this rootedness.   Thank goodness Mrs. T seemed a bit gentler and easier about such things.

Brown Eyes:
This is a great topic!

I think the reasons for Lureen not meeting Jack's folks around the time of the marriage are well-explained/ reasoned-out in Fran's post above.

As their marriage progressed I think Jack might have gone out of his way to discourage Lureen from coming up to Wyoming with him.  I think any and all trips up to Wyoming had an Ennis-component involved...  A trip to Lightning Flat for Jack was probably almost always combined with a trip to see Ennis.  So, it just seems clear that he wouldn't want to complicate those opportunities by involving Lureen in even the idea of trips to Wyoming.  I think, in a wierd way, it's like Ennis telling Alma that he and Jack were fishing buddies (and omitting the fact that they had "cowboy-ed" together).  Certain things needed to be compartmentalized for both Jack and Ennis.  For Jack, I think Wyoming = Ennis (and often Lightning Flat was a side component of this). 

I also think that one reason that Lureen would resist going to Lightning Flat would be her work-aholic personality.  She may not have liked the idea of taking time off of work for a long (possibly boring) roadtrip. 

On the topic of the story vs. the film in indicating whether or not Lureen had met the Twists...  I think the film subtly implies that she *may* have met them... The way she explains to Ennis that Jack's folks will be at their ranch until the day they die implies that she knows them.  Something about the way she says this (the tone of her voice) makes it seem like she's making this judgement based on her interpretation of their personalities.  This is a completely subjective impression that I have and is in no way conclusive.  But, it is interesting that the film skirts this issue compared to the story where it explicitly explains that Lureen didn't know the Twists.

As for Bobby, I can imagine Jack wanting to spare Bobby from dealing with John Twist Sr.  It's not implausible to me that Jack would have deliberately kept Bobby away from Lightning Flat for that reason (in combo with the Ennis complexity in the association with Wyoming).  Of course this is sad for Jack's mother, but, again it seems possible for me to believe that Jack's dislike of his father might outweigh his desire for Bobby to know his grandmother. Jack may have figured that L.D. was enough of a difficult grandfather for Bobby to have to deal with.

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