Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Life and this movie are messy
horo35:
Mmm..well pissant is actually a word..means: "one that is insignificant -- used as a generalized term of abuse" And it definately comes from the word piss/urine. The big question is did Annie mean to use these references to urine in the story? Is there a meaning/connection? I suspect there really is no connection...but if there is i would have to agree with Penthesileas' quote: "I think the peeing adds to the story's realism as much as other things mentioned on this thread. And, again, it's Proulx-like: rough worded, unsentimental."
That's all I have to say about this subject...now if you'll excuse me I have to go to the bathroom! :laugh:
Front-Ranger:
Does it mean like, pissing on an ant? Cause if it does, that calls to mind the terrible experience Jack had as a child when his father actually pissed on him. Another thing along these lines. There is a lot of pissing associated with Jack but not a lot associated with Ennis. This seems in character, because Jack is associated with liquids in general, while Ennis's element is earth or stone (or fire). But the one time we see Ennis urinating is in the prolog, when he pisses in the sink after dreaming about Jack. This reminds me of the scene where Alma turns on the spigots of the sink and they seem to "call forth from their domestic cousin" to the wild waters of the mountain stream.
coffeecat33:
here's an interesting definition I found for piss ants under "pests"...
Pissants, Piss Ants
Odorous Ants, Piss Ants, Sugar Ants
In the United States, any small or tiny ant that infests a home is often labeled as a Pissant or piss ant. An actual Pissant is an ant that lives in certain European forests and gets its name from the odor produce by its nesting material - pine straw and pine needles. Middle English pissemyre : pisse, urine (from the smell of the formic acid that ants secrete); piss + mire, ant (probably of Scandinavian origin; akin to Danish myre).
Front-Ranger:
Question for the day: What kind of scent would Ennis wear? (I'm Xmas gift shopping) I'm envisaging a musk-based scent with top notes of salty-sweet mountain air, cigarette smoke, ozone, with a long finish of freshly-sythed green grass. Anybody know where I can get such an item??
Marge_Innavera:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on September 27, 2006, 11:00:04 pm ---Yes, I love the way Proulx uses 'stink'. Men in Ennis and Jack's line of work don't bathe that often - especially in 1963 - and if they do, rarely could they afford deoderant, so yes, they did stink after a hard day's labor.
The short story is majorly Ennis POV. So Ennis is not about to describe another man's personal effluvia with such soft-pedaled words as 'scent', 'odor', 'fragrance' or what have you. Jack stinks after a normal day's work - though in the short story we do wonder about Jack's personal hygiene after he's married Lureen and comes up to Riverton after 4 years. He's a businessman by then and you'd think he'd be a little cleaner.
--- End quote ---
Ennis mainly saw Jack in a wilderness setting, first during that summer on Brokeback and later on camping trips. We can assume that Jack was much cleaner when he was at home and in sales situations.
Also, I remember 1963 clearly enough to know that plumbing, soap and deodorants were quite adequate then. It wasn't exactly the medieval era.
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