Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum

TOTW 01/08: Do you think Jack was murdered or was it an accident?

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moremojo:

--- Quote from: wdj on January 07, 2008, 03:46:36 pm --- :o  Congrats on your 3,oooth post Moremo!    :D
--- End quote ---
Merci beaucoup! :D

Katie77:
I voted, I think it was an accidentand also we aren't supposed to know

I agree the scene in the movie, is showing us what Ennis is thinking, and because of his paranoia, that is exactly what he would have assumed....all his worst fears had come true, in his mind....maybe he even justified himself, believing he had made the right decison not to go with Jack....a little bit like, "I told you so"...

I think though, that Jack's injuries would have shown whether it was a tire iron or a tire blowing up in his face....it was the 80's, and its hard to believe that there was a cover up by investigators.

It does put some doubt in our mind, of course.....maybe it was used to give some credibility to Ennis's paranoia......all through the movie, we are thinkng, "go with him, you wll be ok"....but once we are given the tire iron thought, we could now be thinking...."Well, maybe Ennis was right all along"......

Another twist to the story, that makes us make up our own mind about what really happened.

serious crayons:

--- Quote from: louise van hine on January 07, 2008, 04:29:20 pm ---Accident.  All references to Jack's death are either from the narrator "Ennis didn't find out about the accident until months later" or from Ennis's point of view, which is referred to in a hallucinatory way.  Ennis had absolutely no way to "know for certain" that it was a tire iron.  However, he was certain that living openly with another man would lead to his and/or Jack's certain death and the comment by Jack's father about Jack planning to leave his wife and move in with "this other fella" fit  his paranoid conviction.  It was a measure of Ennis's paranoia that he so wilfully believed in Jack's murder.
--- End quote ---

I agree with this interpretation, for just those reasons. Also, there was foreshadowing in the story that Ennis would respond that way. When he and Jack were in the motel, he said that if his dad saw them "you bet he'd go get his tire iron."

Some people say, what are the chances of Jack being killed in such a freak tire accident? Well, slim. But that kind of explosion does happen. Are they any smaller than the chances that Jack would be killed the exact same way that Ennis had always feared?

Plus, wouldn't Jack's body have been examined by someone who could tell the difference from the effects of an accident as Lureen describes and the effects of what Ennis imagines?

Ennis has a good reason to suspect murder -- he'd been fearing it all his life. But what is OUR reason, as readers, for suspecting it? All we know is that Ennis suspects it. If Ennis had said, "Oh, OK," in response to Lureen's account and never considered the idea of murder, we'd have no reason to suspect murder, either. But again, we know Ennis is paranoid, so why are his fears a good basis for ours?

The story works better for me as literature if Jack's death is accidental. It's much more ironic and sad to think that Ennis' paranoia is so strong that it leaves him eternally uncertain.

I used to be in the "we aren't meant to know" club, but more recently I've come around to this view.

Brokeback_Dev:
I know in Ennis' mind it was the men with the tire irons, and that could very well be true.  Also, l think that Jack got reckless with his attraction to men, and the people of the town were talking.  Some of them very homophobic.  Plus, from Ennis and Lureen's dialogue on the phone after he read the deceased postcard, I tend to have the thought that Lureen knew something was up with Jack.  She was so cold to ennis and matter of fact with her story of the flat.  I teetered between we are not supposed to know, and yes it was murder, so I split the difference with my answer.  This is a good TOTW.

Artiste:
Murdered!

Since I was beaten and left for dead, because I am a gay man. And I know about many gay men who were murdered and (some if not all) police do nothing!!

Murder was then and still is such danger, unfortunately for gay men!!

Hugs!! May gay men be safe!!

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