Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Double meanings: Lines that can be taken more than one way
nakymaton:
First, to goadra for "Your folks just stop at Ennis?": :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
Second, about the one shot deal: I just had a sudden realization of why I interpret it as Ennis saying "this happened once, and won't happen again." Let's just say that I'm projecting, and although I know that at some level I'm always projecting my own stuff onto the characters, in this case I now know exactly what I'm projecting and why. (Though, just to play devil's advocate for a bit, what if Jack interpreted the statement followed by the 2nd tent scene to mean that Ennis had changed his mind about the "one shot deal," or that he didn't really mean it? Then Jack's actions that last day might make more sense. Maybe?? ;D Oh, hell, maybe I'd better just accept that I'll make any excuse necessary for that pair of pretty blue eyes and give it up. ;D )
Penthesilea - the elk/moose confusion makes sense. I think "elk" describes different animals in American and British English, though I can never remember which animal also lives in Europe. The British colonists mis-identified half the large hoofed mammals in America, I think... though there aren't elk (wapiti) out East now, and I don't think there were back then. Moose, white-tailed deer, caribou/reindeer, but I don't think there were elk. But I can never keep the history and the biology straight. Anyway, digression there...
--- Quote from: latjoreme on June 06, 2006, 09:19:55 am ---So here's a question, especially for you story fans (Mel?). How much of this emotional/psychological stuff is there in the story, and how much is fully developed only in the film? Of course, the basic plot is certainly all there in the story. But I'll have to say that when I read it, I do not get as vivid a sense of how much Ennis' father's actions and attitudes emotionally damaged his son. I read it more simply: having witnessed Earl's awful fate, Ennis quite understandably considered it too dangerous to live with Jack. But I admit I don't fully appreciate the story as much as I should or could, so maybe I just didn't grasp this aspect in enough depth.
--- End quote ---
Well, part of Mikaela's brilliant post ( 8) ) deals with the contrast between the way Ennis appears to like his father, and the horrid experience his father subjected him to. The horrid experience is there in the story, but the contrast isn't, because none of the characters are as likeable as in the movie. (Not even Ennis and Jack, I think.) Annie Proulx just doesn't write likeable characters very much; she seems to have a really unsentimental (to say the least) view of human nature. (In fact, I think she's said that Ennis and Jack were the first of her characters that she fell in love with... and even then, only after she saw the movie. ! BTW, Katherine, I get the impression that AP is quite a Heathen herself after seeing the movie. 8) ) So perhaps it doesn't carry as much emotional weight because I didn't necessarily expect for a parent/child relationship to be anything better than mildly dysfunctional in one of AP's stories?
On the other hand, the story has another description of an incident that left Ennis emotionally damaged: the description of learning to punch K.E. comes right before the description of Earl and Rich's fate.
--- Quote ---Dad says, you got a take him unawares, don't say nothin to him, make him feel some pain, get out fast and keep doin it until he takes the message. Nothin like hurtin somebody to make him hear good.
--- End quote ---
That's not the same sort of abuse as taking a child to see a murdered man, but, geez. "Nothin like hurtin somebody to make him hear good?" And that's the explanation for Ennis's "dirty punch" -- the punch on the last day on the mountain. Between those two lessons, yeah, I think Ennis was pretty emotionally damaged. That's where I've gotten the idea that Ennis was trying to beat his own sexuality (and his love for Jack) into submission when he hit Jack... and every other time Ennis got into a fight, too.
It's not the same thing as the tension between loving a father and being emotionally abused by him, though.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: nakymaton on June 06, 2006, 02:39:54 pm --- BTW, Katherine, I get the impression that AP is quite a Heathen herself after seeing the movie.
--- End quote ---
:laugh: I've gotten that impression, too -- especially from her quote about how he came to understand the character better than she did. :-* Well, she is a woman over 35, so according to highly scientific research here at BetterMost, it's not statistically unlikely ... :laugh:
Mikaela:
Thanks for kind words on my previous post. :)
--- Quote ---From Penthesilea
And, at their last evening together, they let Jack say "Everytime I go to see the ranchneighbour's wife, somebody shoots at me."
--- End quote ---
LOL! Somehow, that scene is the saddest one in the whole film to me - there's a deep melancholy and resignation there that is utterly painful. But hearing Jack say *that* every time would change that mood a bit for sure. Especially with Ennis laughing at it, too! :o
--- Quote ---From Nakymaton quoting Annie Proulx
Dad says, you got a take him unawares, don't say nothin to him, make him feel some pain, get out fast and keep doin it until he takes the message. Nothin like hurtin somebody to make him hear good.
--- End quote ---
In addition to what you say about this scene, Mel - which I completely agree with - there's another point to it that pertains to Ennis's relationship with his father. Ennis in the short story tells Jack how his father taught him to use his fists to solve the problem with his older brother beating on him all the time (emphasis mine):
--- Quote --- When I was about six he set me down and says, Ennis you've got a problem and you got a fix it or it's going to be with you until you're ninety.....
--- End quote ---
Another instance of high tragic irony there, that Ennis's father once showed him that if you can't stand it, you've got to fix it - *and* even when it may seem impossible, there's actually a possibility of fixing it!
--- Quote ---From Nakymaton
the description of learning to punch K.E. comes right before the description of Earl and Rich's fate.
--- End quote ---
And the short story has one sentence that I find the most chilling of all in that sorry tale of murder and child abuse. Ennis is telling Jack about that incident when his father took his sons to see the murdered man, and among other things he says:
--- Quote ---Dad laughed about it.
--- End quote ---
Yeah, that Mr. Del Mar sure knew how to raise his sons right! >:( >:(
--- Quote ---From Nakymaton
That's where I've gotten the idea that Ennis was trying to beat his own sexuality (and his love for Jack) into submission when he hit Jack... and every other time Ennis got into a fight, too.
--- End quote ---
Oh, what an observation that is - the most horrible win-win situation ever: If Ennis gets into a fight over some remark pertaining to his sexuality and wins, he's reaffirmed his manhood. But if he loses, he'ss thereby been helped with beating that unwanted part of his mind and psyche into submission. **shudders**
--- Quote ---From nakymaton
Annie Proulx just doesn't write likeable characters very much; she seems to have a really unsentimental (to say the least) view of human nature.
--- End quote ---
That's almost an understatement....... Reading the rest of "Close Range" depressed me so much, I could hardly stand it, it got me so disillusioned with human nature because of that unsentimental, frank and chilling description of the characters and their relationships. Her writing is fabulous, but her characters and story lines are far from the fairy tales, that's for sure......
~~~~
OK, perhaps a return to "Double Meanings" for me after all of that?
There are a number of lines that carry double meanings because they help bridging scenes, and so can be taken at face value or as a comment to the upcoming or previous scene. I think one of my favourites in that regard is Ennis rushing down the stairs and calling back to Alma concerning the cigarettes:
"They're in the bedroom."
And sure enough, in the next scene we get they *are* in the bedroom. At the Siesta. ;)
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Mikaela on June 06, 2006, 06:18:16 pm ---And sure enough, in the next scene we get they *are* in the bedroom. At the Siesta. ;)
--- End quote ---
And smoking! :-*
Mikaela:
--- Quote ---And smoking!
--- End quote ---
;D ;D
Sure enough!
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