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..."

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stevenedel:
(Hey! My tenth post! I'm no longer a tourist!)  ;D

serious crayons:

--- Quote from: Mikaela on July 04, 2006, 06:11:05 am ---Ennis *knows* without a doubt, in his heart, what Jack meant to him - that he loved him. But he doesn't know that Jack ever fully knew or was made to understand how deeply Ennis loved him, - the way Ennis never spoke up, the way he behaved, from punching Jack out to omitting any verbal response to the "Sometimes I miss you so much....."  to blaming Jack for making him a "noone". Ennis can only try to believe that despite his silences and fears and his constant holding back, what he did do was still enough, so that Jack *did* at one point experience the confirmation of Ennis's love for him without any doubts lingering and lurking, *did* believe all that Ennis "swears" to Jack after Jack is gone. It seems to me one of the worst regrets Ennis has to live with is that he never managed to tell Jack his feelings right out, loud and clear. Despite their relationship taking up and shaping Ennis's entire life - he never said the words, except indirectly, and as a part of a bitter accusation. Sure, he has to try to believe and hope that what he did do was somehow still enough - but there's a huge space of doubt between that and certainty.

--- End quote ---

Well put, Mikaela. I think this, too. In fact, this is the way I interpreted the sentence the first time I read the story. I'd forgotten about that.


--- Quote ---I wonder if Annie Proulx herself had one specific meaning and one meaning only read into that last line;
--- End quote ---

I don't think she did. I think she purposely left it vague, applicable to any number of story elements. Partly because, as we all have demonstrated, it IS applicable a lot of different ways. And partly because by doing so she draws us in and forces us to try to  figure out what's going on in Ennis' head and heart. Just like in the movie, where it would be easy enough to show Jack watching Ennis bathing -- that would make his thoughts clear -- it's more effective to show Jack concentrating on the potato peeling, because although ultimately the message is the same we have to take a more active role, have to try to figure him out for ourselves.

As you say, Mikaela, fully knowing someone's thoughts is impossible. Yet that never stops us from trying.

nakymaton:

--- Quote from: Mikaela on July 04, 2006, 06:11:05 am ---What seems certain to me though is that the brief paragraph preceding it covers the whole of Jack and Ennis's time together. The beans and spoon handles of Brokeback, the plans and dreams that came to nothing, the shadow of the tire iron that loomed over their relationship the entire life because of its significance to Ennis, the love, the sex, the grief and tears. That it's cast in "cartoon shape(s) and lurid colours that (give) the dreams a flavour of comic obscenity" seems very harsh, entirely unsentimental, and pointing to a great deal of tragic irony in Ennis's situation at the end of the story.
--- End quote ---

Oh, wow. I honestly hadn't known what to make of the spoon handle transforming into a tire iron in Ennis's dreams. It seemed like it should seem like a threat... but why the spoon handle? And why the "comic obscenity"? It was such a bizarre image that I sort of skipped over it, putting it aside as one of those weird things that happens in dreams. But it's not the sort of detail that would be thrown in randomly. In the descriptions, in particular, every word counts, and maybe the words that don't make sense on the first reading mean more than all the others.

And this:

--- Quote ---Ennis *knows* without a doubt, in his heart, what Jack meant to him - that he loved him. But he doesn't know that Jack ever fully knew or was made to understand how deeply Ennis loved him, - the way Ennis never spoke up, the way he behaved, from punching Jack out to omitting any verbal response to the "Sometimes I miss you so much....."  to blaming Jack for making him a "noone". Ennis can only try to believe that despite his silences and fears and his constant holding back, what he did do was still enough, so that Jack *did* at one point experience the confirmation of Ennis's love for him without any doubts lingering and lurking, *did* believe all that Ennis "swears" to Jack after Jack is gone.
--- End quote ---

Ok, I swore I was just going to read and not agree or disagree with anyone here, but this is brilliant.

Though I don't believe that Ennis wished he had said "I love you" to Jack. But that's at least in part because I think the words "I love you" have become meaningless and hollow from overuse in cheesy, shallow movies and fiction, and I think that they are more often meant when they aren't said.

Jeff Wrangler:

--- Quote from: stevenedel on July 04, 2006, 09:36:10 am ---(Hey! My tenth post! I'm no longer a tourist!)  ;D

--- End quote ---

Congratulations and Welcome! We can always use new ranch hands! (And a very good post it was, too!)  ;D

serious crayons:

--- Quote from: nakymaton on July 04, 2006, 10:48:44 am ---Though I don't believe that Ennis wished he had said "I love you" to Jack. But that's at least in part because I think the words "I love you" have become meaningless and hollow from overuse in cheesy, shallow movies and fiction, and I think that they are more often meant when they aren't said.

--- End quote ---

I agree, totally, that the words have become meaningless and hollow in movies. I don't think he necessarily meant to say those exact words so much as he wished he'd made sure Jack knew that he'd felt them.

Which is why, to drag in one of my favorite topics, I don't mind the idea of him saying it in the closet to the empty shirts. I know some people are repelled by this possibility -- over and above the question of whether they can detect him saying it or not -- because they see it as some maudlin capitulation to cinematic convention.

I don't, for two reasons: 1) If he does say it, it's not done in some big dramatic cliched sappy way, but in a way that's indescernible to 99.9999999 .... percent of the viewing audience, including those who've seen the movie dozens of times, and 2) If he does say it, he's saying it to an empty shirt, after years of not responding adequately to Jack's endearments, underscoring the hopelessness of his ever fully expressing his feelings to Jack. How poignant is that?

:-* :-\ :'(

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