Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
TOTW 06/08: Did Ennis die at the day described in the prologue?
mouk:
ooops Fabienne :o - Our next meeting is in the summer, right? and the weather will be warm
Anyway, to try and remain on topic, it does seem like very many years have passed by indeed, that Ennis has more or less given up on life and is so lonely that social niceties such as going to the bathroom or outhouse are of no relevance any longer to him, and that dying on that day would not be such a bad thing
It was mentioned that AP would not have given a hint of something that was not going to happen in the story - but we could argue that she also says that 'a story is not finished until it is read, and that the reader finishes it through his or her life experience, prejudices, world view and thoughts'
BelAir:
--- Quote from: nakymaton on February 26, 2008, 01:14:49 am ---Perhaps the prologue sounds as though Ennis is dying because Ennis has already died a bit, inside? There's something ghost-like about Ennis at the beginning and end of the story. (Not the part about pissing in the sink. I'm not sure if a sink-pissing ghost would be scary or funny or just unhygienic.)
--- End quote ---
:laugh: :D :laugh:
SFEnnisSF:
I never read the thread on DCF, but I did discuss this idea with a forum member in person once. I was facinated. I just want to share one metaphor idea that was introduced to me: The trailer is his coffin, and the wind making the gravel hit the trailer is the dirt being shoveled on his "coffin".....
brokeplex:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on February 26, 2008, 10:19:47 am ---Gee, thanks. You're telling me I'm getting old prematurely. ...
(On a more serious, topic-related note, I'm glad someone else noticed this detail. I've written elsewhere that I feel it's one indication that the prologue takes place many years, perhaps a decade at least, after Jack's death, and that Ennis is still alone--no finding another male lover.)
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Hi Jeff, that is my interpretation that the Ennis we meet in the prolog has been alone for a decade and a half after Jack's death. Ennis in the prologue would be in his mid 50's set in about 1997 when AP wrote the story. And yes, he would still be alone, his one chance at love gone forever.
If you have a copy of the Story to Screenplay, read the essay by AP where she discusses her inspiration for writing the book and discusses that elderly cowboy watching the young men playing pool. that old fellow who may have been country gay, he may or may not have had a chance at love like Ennis did. I think that AP was creating an alternate world for that specific man, in order to tell what his story could have been if he had met a Jack and fallen in love. In the end though, he ends up alone, watching the young men play pool in the local honkey tonk.
mouk:
--- Quote from: sfericsf on February 26, 2008, 11:32:16 pm ---I never read the thread on DCF, but I did discuss this idea with a forum member in person once. I was facinated. I just want to share one metaphor idea that was introduced to me: The trailer is his coffin, and the wind making the gravel hit the trailer is the dirt being shoveled on his "coffin".....
--- End quote ---
Yes, exactly, sferics, and it was also compared to the Thresher submarine that sank: the trailer has a 'curved length' and the 'scratching of fine gravel and sand' is very reminiscent of the noise people in the Thresher would have heard when it hit the bottom of the sea and slid on it. There is even mention of a shark.
The keys were also mentioned, I think as the offer of a choice of a new life, and a parallel with the keys thrown at him by Aguirre was also mentioned, giving him the choice of a life with Jack. As I write this I just realise this could well be the keys to love, thrown by Aguirre and then the keys to death dropped in his hand by the shark - death that may well reunite him with Jack, so these are perhaps again the keys to love...
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