Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
"There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe..."
opinionista:
--- Quote from: Daniel on June 30, 2006, 09:32:12 am ---I actually performed on of my daily meditations on this line. Whatever its meaning, it is profoundly stated and suggests a great many things in my opinion. It can be interpreted practically any way. See Daily Meditation 23. http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php?topic=538.msg49485#msg49485.
The beauty of love and romance, in part, is due to the natural opposition of death and life. Where there is hope, death cannot enter. There is open space between what we know and what we try to believe. But there is definitely something we can do. To take one step into that space: to wonder, to hope, to think, to believe, can immensely change a person's life from its drab, nonessential existence to a lively performance of play between soul and body, heart and mind. Whether or not this play resolves the situation is not important. What is important is that we not simply stand the situation and do nothing to resolve our pain and anguish.
--- End quote ---
I agree. Very beautifully put Daniel.
ednbarby:
--- Quote from: fernly on June 30, 2006, 02:29:26 am ---I agree with all of you, and how about this, too...
Much as it tears at me to say it, I think part of what Ennis knew was that the choices he made did help lead to Jack's death.
(Like Jake himself and many others have said before, once Jack was sure that Ennis would never really be with him, that's when he began to die.)
Far as what Ennis tried to believe (and this tears at me, too, that he isn't sure) - he could only try to believe that, given the chance in November, he would finally have said yes to Jack ("Jack, I swear.."),
and saved Jack, and himself.
--- End quote ---
Dammit. I'm tearing up at my desk at work *again*. Let's hope no one comes by in the next minute or two telling me I forgot to use the new cover page on my expense report...
That puts a new spin on "Jack, I swear..." I'd never considered, Lynn. As the line goes, it's sad, and wonderful. But mostly sad. :(
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: meryl on June 30, 2006, 10:59:01 am ---Phew! That's a sad take on it, Jeff, but it does make sense to me. Ennis didn't have a lot of self confidence, and I could see him worrying that Jack had found someone more compatible, maybe more 'fun' (as he said to Cassie) to share his life with.
Ennis had to know that Jack loved him, but a big part of Ennis's grief must have centered on the fact that he drove Jack to do what he did by his refusal to give Jack what he needed. He tried to believe that he had been right to refuse, but in the end, he knew that that refusal had cost them both dearly. :'(
--- End quote ---
It is sad. But what I try to believe, for my own sake as well as Ennis's, is that he came to terms with the open space and the uncertainty. We don't know how much time has elapsed between the end of the story and the prologue that now begins the text. But we do know that in the prologue, Ennis awoke that morning "suffused with happiness" because Jack had been in his dream. I find that hopeful, and on that I base my hope.
whiteoutofthemoon:
Ah yes, a very profound line in the short story..... to me, just like "I swear", it is open to many interpretations, and I think Proulx intended it that way...The whole sadness of the line is not the what he knew or what he believed, but the words "some open space", conjuring up images of the huge and cold, lonely plain, one that Ennis will have to spend the rest of his life on, alone. This brings up a literary technique (i forget what it's called), where the lines may not necessarily make sense, but rather it's the feeling the words themselves give that is significant. I read that line and I think of hopelessness, regret, loneliness, longing for something that was within his grasp, but is now lost forever. Wow.
In other words...."it could have been".
serious crayons:
I've always assumed it had something to do with the way Jack died, but I also had a niggling feeling that there's more to it. All of the interpretations here fit the sentence so well that now I'm thinking it's a theme woven throughout the story, applying to many different issues that provoked emotional conflict for Ennis.
Another example: There was a space between what he knew (that he was gay) and what he tried to believe (that he wasn't).
Apparently, for Ennis, having a space between what he knows and what he tries to believe is a common occurrence. (Maybe it is for all of us! But that's too deep a philosophical question for me to try to answer sitting at a computer in a public library.)
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