How Did Jack Die?

[Jane]

Oh boy, how many times have I (along with the rest of the world) gone over this one?  I,ve thought about it until my head hurts,and the more I think about the explanation given by Jacks wife, the more it doesn,t make sense. (someone enlighten me if I,m wrong please).  He was supposidly killed by an exploding tyre yes?  He was changing a FLAT tyre. Presumably he would have had a spare tyre in the trunk, and unless that was flat too, he,d have just been able to change it and go.  So how did it explode?  He wouldnt have had to pump it up, unless it was flat too, so it doesnt make much sense.  The scene that Ennis saw in his mind, was I think, how he imagined it. I,m sure it had something to do with Lureens dad. He hated Jack from day one.  He was never going to be good enough for his precious daughter.  He probably found out somehow, not sure how, that he was gay as well.  Remember too that he was an important man, he had a buisness and reputation to mantain.  I certainly think that Jack was beaten up, probably dumped somewhere on the side of the road, out in the middle of no where and told to get lost and never come back.  It was easier to let everyone THINK he was dead, including poor Ennis.  I dont know, I might be totally wrong.  Jack might really have been killed by the tyre or murdered by some gay bashers, but I dont suppose we,ll ever really know will we?  One more thing.  The author said that people are sick to death of disaster and unhappy endings.  What does she give us?  More disaster!!  Everything doesnt always have to end in disaster.  I know it,s rare, but sometimes people have happy endings.  If anyone deserved that after everything they,d been through, it was Jack and Ennis. Us too. Lifes a bitch sometimes.

[David]

My two cents worth??

Jack did go back to Childress and told Lureen that he wanted a divorce and that he was going to ranch up with Randall.    Lureen was naturally upset and went crying to Daddy.    L.D. like any father wanted to get back at the man who hurt his daughter.   Unfortunately I think he sent his rough mechanics out to intercept Jack on the way to Randalls.    They of course go too far and leave not knowing that Jack was mortally wounded.     When Jack is found, it is arranged to look like an accident.  After all,  Lureen and her father are well known in town and they don't want a scandal. 

I feel this way because Lureens speech about the Tire incident seemed too rehearsed.   As if she had to recite it to everyone who called the house to offer condolences.     She certainly wouldn't tell people that her queer husband tried to leave her and her daddy's goons killed him.

Poor Jack.    I think even if he did divorce Lureen and Randall agreed to Ranch up with him, that after a while, Jack would resume those fishing trips.   He'd just tell Randall that he was going up to visit his parents.   

Too bad he didn't live to see Ennis in November.     It would have been interesting to see if either one of them had any new outlooks on the situation and what to do about it.   

Poor Jack.   Poor Ennis.   

[Jane]

Hi, thanks for that.  Yes her speech DID seem like a well rehearsed reply, I,ve always thought that.  And I think your right about randall too.  Even if Jack had ranched up with him, he, have stiil seen Ennis, and who knows? Maybe he,d have dumped the ugly rancher, (he was NO match for Ennis lookswise was he?) and persuaded Ennis to come up to his parents place with him.  I guess we,ll never know now. Also a lot of what was in the main film, ie the cinema isnt on the dvd I think, like the scene with the mechanics.  You see them in the trailer on line but not the dvd.  Poor Ennis,s sad little face, mine too.   If ever there was a match made in heaven it was those two. 

[tiawahcowboy]

Well, the only time the Story Lureen (no maiden name given) talks in Annie Proulx's original story is when Ennis calls the very same Childress, Texas phone number he had called and left a message that Alma had divorced him.

Since Jack high-tailed/red-lined it all the way up to Wyoming for nothing, he had misunderstood why Ennis left a message about the divorce in the first place. He thought that meant Ennis was free to be with Jack the rest of his life.

But, the way that Lureen talked to Ennis on the phone was politely but cold about the truck tire changing accident. Lureen's father had died before the Story Jack ever worked for the farm equipment company. And, even then, Lureen was his boss. The Story Jack did not work for Lureen until quite a while after the scene between Ennis and Alma in her kitchen at Thanksgiving. There is no Story Thanksgiving in Childress, Texas.

If Jack had really died in a truck tire changing accident, it could have been the fact that he had a flat on a farm equipment company truck while making a delivery or something. Who knows?

Other than people talking about the Story Jack having died, the Story Ennis NEVER saw proof of Jack's death. He just took their word for it.

[David]

Well, the screenplay contains alot more than the original story.   So for discussions sake, you can't discount all that was added for the movie.   Anne Proulx was satisfied with the Screenplay/movie after all.  She raved about it.   So I think it is safe to call Ann Hathaways character "Lureen Newsome Twist".

And we don't see Jacks actual death.   The vision is totally in Ennis's imagination.   But the point I was making is that Jack certainly could have met his death the way I described.   Jack was drinking alot and being careless.  He may have gotten drunk and spilled the beans (no pun intended) to Lureen about wanting a divorce.

Again, ALL speculation.  Even Anne Proulx isn't talking.

[tiawahcowboy]

While the movie Lureen had a slight tear on her cheek while talking to Ennis on the phone, the politely cold tone that the actress used for her voice was like the book . And Les said that Lureen lied to Ennis on the phone. But, in the interview, Lee did not say how much of what she said was actually a lie.

Since, in the book at the motel in 1967, Ennis said that in so many words his father-in-law woud pay for him to get lost, it could be that Lureen who took on the persona of how Jack described her father and she divorced Jack and paid him to get lost, too.

Since I know for a fact that people can bury their dead on a family plot and not have to even have the proof that a container supposedly containing a deceased person's ashes actually has them, Jack could have agreed to the divorce if she would help him "Let be, Let be" so that he coulld "quit Ennis" and get on with his life.

Jack was really tired of chasing after Ennis for 16 years and Ennis never making a commitment to their relationship. And we all know that he said so, no matter which source we use for our discussion.

[twistedude]

We don't know. We are free to think what we want. The only one who's sure is Ennis (in the short story). Far be it froim me to make up my mind about anything the author has not told me.

Er...yeah.

One thing that is disturbing about Jack being murdered, is that that would mean Ennis was right all the time, wouldn't it? Maybe. Maybe not.

Nothing like closure.

You lucky people who know. You don't have to write short stories...my short stories are sure, but I am not. For all I know, Jack got picked up by a sailor once, and got killed by an exploding tire...and Ennis remained faithful in all senses of the word to his memory.  And his kid was an idfot...just ask me, I'll tell you everything!

[tiawahcowboy]

Jack's son at age 15, according to Annie Poulx, had dyslexia and it was in 1983 when Jack complained about Lureen not contacting his school about the learning disability problem.

Well, I have known and still know a number of people who have dyslexia and they certainly are not idiots.

Two of them are teachers and in high school and university they were straight "A," aka 4.0 (4.0 being a perfect grade), students. 

Ennis just thinks he knows for sure how Jack died and he does not believe what Lureen told him. Besides, Ang Lee said that Lureen lied to Ennis.

[Jane]

While the movie Lureen had a slight tear on her cheek while talking to Ennis on the phone, the politely cold tone that the actress used for her voice was like the book . And Les said that Lureen lied to Ennis on the phone. But, in the interview, Lee did not say how much of what she said was actually a lie.

Since, in the book at the motel in 1967, Ennis said that in so many words his father-in-law woud pay for him to get lost, it could be that Lureen who took on the persona of how Jack described her father and she divorced Jack and paid him to get lost, too.

Since I know for a fact that people can bury their dead on a family plot and not have to even have the proof that a container supposedly containing a deceased person's ashes actually has them, Jack could have agreed to the divorce if she would help him "Let be, Let be" so that he coulld "quit Ennis" and get on with his life.



Jack was really tired of chasing after Ennis for 16 years and Ennis never making a commitment to their relationship. And we all know that he said so, no matter which source we use for our discussion.

Exactly right. I,ve always thought what you said.  Jacks father in law DID say he,d pay him money to get lost, that was said after their renunion when they went back to the mountain.  Laureens speech did sound too well rehearsed.  Maybe your right.  Maybe he was tired of Ennis never commiting fully to their relationship and just decided to fake his own death so that Ennis could get on with his life.  Thing is though, Jack WAS his life, so without him, what life does he have? And as you rightly said, Ennis had no proof Jack was dead, he just took their word for it.  Just think Jack could still be alive and Poor Ennis is miserable for nothing!!  

[tiawahcowboy]

Up until about the time that the last meeting took place, the Story Ennis got jobs at places where he could quit on short notice. He did that to be able to spend a week at a time twice a year with Jack.

While the movie has a miserable ending for Ennis Del Mar and he has tears in his eyes, it is not exactly so with Annie Proulx's original short story.
After Ennis and Jack left Brokeback Mountain in August 1963, Ennis NEVER went back up there. (In the book, he did go back to Signal and work at the Stoutamire ranch where he was working in 1983 when they met for the last time.

When Jack said, "All we got is Brokeback Moutain," he was speaking metaphorically; because Ennis only wanted to camp out up in the high altitude of the Wyoming mountains every time they got together.

Here are the opening paragraphs of her original work which was included with what had been submitted to the New Yorker Magazine:

Ennis Del Mar wakes before five, wind rocking the trailer, hissing in around the aluminum door and window frames. The shirts hanging on a nail shudder slightly in the draft. He gets up, scratching the grey wedge of belly and pubic hair, shuffles to the gas burner, pours leftover coffee in a chipped enamel pan; the flame swathes it in blue. He turns on the tap and urinates in the sink, pulls on his shirt and jeans, his worn boots, stamping the heels against the floor to get them full on. The wind booms down the curved length of the trailer and under its roaring passage he can hear the scratching of fine gravel and sand. It could be bad on the highway with the horse trailer. He has to be packed and away from the place that morning. Again the ranch is on the market and they've shipped out the last of the horses, paid everybody off the day before, the owner saying, "Give em to the real estate shark, I'm out a here," dropping the keys in Ennis's hand. He might have to stay with his married daughter until he picks up another job, yet he is suffused with a sense of pleasure because Jack Twist was in his dream.
   The stale coffee is boiling up but he catches it before it goes over the side, pours it into a stained cup and blows on the black liquid, lets a panel of the dream slide forward. If he does not force his attention on it, it might stoke the day, rewarm that old, cold time on the mountain when they owned the world and nothing seemed wrong. The wind strikes the trailer like a load of dirt coming off a dump truck, eases, dies, leaves a temporary silence.

Notice what the narrative says about Ennis's dream.