Wowee! I think maybe we do agree on quite a bit more than we previously thought.
Of course, there are a FEW little things ...
I acknowledge that I don’t understand Ennis as well as Jack. Much of what I think and feel is from the perspective of someone who has been constantly disappointed by a person who I have loved.
I was wondering about that, given what you've mentioned about your life. And, as I've said, I relate more to Ennis. I'm more outgoing and open, but there are other aspects of his personality I recognize.
Not the childhood scarring, thank god. I had a pretty good childhood. Still, I've known people who weren't as lucky, and yet managed to find health and happiness as adults.
But I do think that experiencing a traumatic event, especially in childhood, leaves an indelible mark....
Absolutely. I'm not saying he'd ever completely forget about his past, or that those teachings would be easily overcome.
A child is raised in a strict God-fearing home and is taught that sex is evil and bad (especially outside of marriage). So, when s/he reaches adolescence and begins to become aware of his/her own sexuality there is conflict. S/he has been taught to hate his/her feelings. Consequently, every relationship this person goes through is tainted by his/her perception that sex is dirty. It is extremely difficult to extricate that point of view. Ultimately, this person has troubles acknowledging/ accepting that sex is a good thing.
I guess I view people as frequently more flexible and resillient than that. Sure, those parental teachings can lead to big internal -- or external! -- conflict, particularly in adolescence. But I have friends with very strict sex-is-bad Catholic backgrounds who, upon reaching maturity, were able to look around and see that there are healthier ways of viewing sexuality. I also know, or know of, open-minded people who grew up in bigoted families, moderate drinkers whose parents were alcoholics, leftists raised by right-wingers, and so on. I know all kinds of adults whose family backgrounds are extremely different from their lives now, because they got exposed to other ways of thinking and realized they no longer agreed with their parents.
I'm not saying that kind of deep-seated change is easy or quick. Of course there's struggle. Maybe it often involves some kind of epiphany or conversion experience, or meeting someone influential -- teacher, lover, friend -- with a very different view.
And it varies by degree and life experiences and character. Some people obviously never reject their childhood teachings or overcome those traumas. But in any case, plenty of people do. They never forget what they learned in childhood, but they are able to see the flaws and move forward.
Now for Ennis, it would be particularly difficult. He's uneducated, he has always lived in the same area and is among the same kind of people he grew up with (those big changes often seem triggered by education or a different environment or meeting people with different outlooks). And his father's views were passed down in a particularly harsh and cruel way -- through terror -- and hit particularly close to home for Ennis because of his own sexuality. And in his case, the views he needs to reject aren't just held by his dad, but by pretty much everyone around him.
So change would be incredibly difficult. That's probably why he doesn't progress much over 20 years -- except when really big things (good or bad) happen to him.
One is falling in love with Jack, and deciding to act on it at Brokeback, and to continue the relationship later. Another is the big argument with Jack and Ennis' breakup with Cassie. And another is Jack's death and the events that follow: the phone call to Lureen, the visit with the Twists -- one of whom is loving and accepts their relationship, the other of whom is hateful and in many ways resembles his own father but amazingly accepts their relationship nevertheless -- and then his own unfathomable grief.
All these experiences, IMO, lead him to new ways of looking at things that are quite different from what he was taught growing up.