Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Would Ennis Commit Suicide?
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: dly64 on August 02, 2006, 01:59:31 pm ---Jeff - you have beautifully put into words what I have been trying to express but was unable to do so. Thanks!
--- End quote ---
Aw, shucks! I'm just happy to know I understood your meaning.
Do you suppose there would be some level, perhaps that even he couldn't get in touch with, where Ennis would be angry at Jack for "getting himself killed"? Does anyone know--am I remembering this correctly?--whether "anger" is considered one of the stages of grief?
jpwagoneer1964:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on August 02, 2006, 02:50:03 pm ---Aw, shucks! I'm just happy to know I understood your meaning.
Do you suppose there would be some level, perhaps that even he couldn't get in touch with, where Ennis would be angry at Jack for "getting himself killed"? Does anyone know--am I remembering this correctly?--whether "anger" is considered one of the stages of grief?
--- End quote ---
Yes I think it is,I bet Ennis did have his moments when he was angry at Jack for"getting himself killed".
Mikaela:
--- Quote ---It's as though Ennis might see "being gay," rather than a tire iron, as being ultimately responsbile for Jack's death, so that it could increase his own internalized homophobia--his own hatred of "being gay."
--- End quote ---
I think this is a very astute observation. I've always considered Ennis's internalized homophobia a (relatively) bigger impediment to his happiness than his fear of being subjected to physical violence for being "gay". I think the same might well hold true for his emotions surrounding Jack's death.
Another event that I was wondering whether might have had the same effect - ie. increasing Ennis's internalized hatred of "being gay", seeing it as "wrong" or "bad" - is AIDS. Just a very few years after Jack died, Ennis could hardly have avoided the news stories; - the media and medical "frenzy" about the illness and the focus on how gay men in particular were affected.
Ennis wouldn't regard the illness in a Conservative Christian light, he's hardly a fan of the fire-and-brimstone crowd's views. But I've wondered if he might still not, influenced by the IMO far-less-than-balanced news coverage back in the day, consciously or subconsciously use it as fuel for the fire of his own "hatred of being gay": Might he consider it some sort of confirmation that his sexual orientation is "wrong" and "dangerous" and so increase his self-hatred. If it did have that effect on him, it might have served to send him further into that self-destructive behaviour (mainly drinking) that has been discussed in this thread, and so have pushed him further towards the passive form of suicide.
(I think I need a stiff drink myself after writing this. It's an interesting and worthwhile, but very depressing subject.)
Marge_Innavera:
Yes, it is one of the stages, and I can see Ennis feeling anger at some point.
In some cases, including Ennis' IMO, there's also a kind of relief with survivor guilt piling in right on top of that. Sometimes that can be a person who's died after a lingering illness, or the survivor might have been under years of stress due to drinking problems, drug addiction, etc. In Ennis' case, it might cross his mind that Jack's death has left him "safe" from discovery.
Marge_Innavera:
--- Quote from: Mikaela on August 02, 2006, 02:52:45 pm ---I think this is a very astute observation. I've always considered Ennis's internalized homophobia a (relatively) bigger impediment to his happiness than his fear of being subjected to physical violence for being "gay". I think the same might well hold true for his emotions surrounding Jack's death.
Another event that I was wondering whether might have had the same effect - ie. increasing Ennis's internalized hatred of "being gay", seeing it as "wrong" or "bad" - is AIDS. Just a very few years after Jack died, Ennis could hardly have avoided the news stories; - the media and medical "frenzy" about the illness and the focus on how gay men in particular were affected.
--- End quote ---
On the other hand, Ennis might be aware that he's denied himself the life he wanted with Jack all these years, and all for nothing. Sometimes that kind of experience tends to make people more reckless.
I wouldn't see Ennis doing himself in with a shotgun, deliberate "accident" and so on but more by drinking too much and neglecting his health. No telling how many deaths there are that are at least "partial suicides" but the death certificate says something else.
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