We've seen all the everyday objects -- fans, buckets, coffee pots, water, snow, shirts, hats, colors, wind, hair, guns, trucks, elk -- can carry big metaphoric meaning. Because these objects keep reappearing throughout the movie, it's relatively easy to match them with their circumstances and figure out whether they fit the idea they're supposed to convey.
But I wonder about objects that appear just once or twice, but seem like they might have subtexts, too. It makes sense to me to consider these, given how many of those other symbolic objects could have easily been overlooked, and given how complex and detailed everything else is.
These one-shot things are almost impossible to prove or disprove, easy to imagine, easy to dismiss as imaginary. I thought I'd start a thread in which people can throw out ideas, however far-fetched, and argue over them. Here are a couple:
When Ennis drives up to the Twist ranch, he parks next to a dark, abandoned-looking, shell of a houselike structure. It's actually some kind of ranch outbuilding. But when I saw it, it made me think of the home that Ennis and Jack never had together.
When Ennis goes into Jack's room and picks up the little horse-and-cowboy statue, it's clearly reminiscent of the horse (no cowboy) he was seen carving on Brokeback. It's not the same one, yet it's too coincidental for there not to be a connection. So what does it mean? Does Jack's statue symbolize a life he'd envisioned as part of a couple (the horse and rider), while Ennis' statue represents his expectations of a life alone?