Was Mexico all about revenge or about need?

[twistedude]

For Siede, with Love and squalor:

                                  http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3061097/1/

anger, sex, the need to ber loved, and the need to have someone to love. Take it or leave it. There's a sequel too. 2, in fact. It wouldn't KILL you to read them!

[Jeff Wrangler]

Back to Jack's motivations for Mexico. I don't think it's revenge, that is, deliberately hurting Ennis (even if Ennis would never find out) to get back at him for hurting Jack. Nor does it seem tantrum-like to me. What it seems more like is a mix of anger, frustration, hearbreak, loneliness, disappointment and desperation. Like, "Well, screw Ennis! I don't need him." Except, of course, he does.

Essentially I agree with you, Katherine. It's just that to me (granted I'm not a parent), Jack's reaction, tearing off to Mexico, strikes me as, well, tantrum-ish. Even outside of the Brokeback context, I've just always felt that going off and having sex wherever and from whomever you can get it, when you can't get it from the partner you really want, when you are clearly as hurt and upset as Jack, is the adult gay male equivalent of a 2-year-old holding his breath till he turns blue.

And in saying this, I don't in any way intend to minimize Jack's pain, or the fact that what he really needs and wants from Ennis is a whole lot more than just sex. I've just always felt that Jack's reaction is essentially childish. This also doesn't mean I don't hurt for him, 'cause I sure enough do.

[David In Indy]

Melissa -

Actually I always figured it was a little bit of both. But, now that I think about it, you are probably correct. 

[bbm_stitchbuffyfan]

I think Jack was hurt and was looking for a way to make himself feel better. There, I assume, he realized that sex is no substitute for the intimacy he had with Ennis.

[jpwagoneer1964]

I think Jack was hurt and was looking for a way to make himself feel better. There, I assume, he realized that sex is no substitute for the intimacy he had with Ennis.

Well put. Remember the hollow look Jack had? Same as the end of when he was dancing with Lureen.

[nakymaton]

I can see the analogy with a kid who hasn't gotten his way. (Though I know as many adults as children who do things like that... but, yeah, "childish" is a word that could come to mind.)

What's odd about driving to Mexico in a fit of anger, though, is that it's such a damn long drive. (And after a 14-hour drive beforehand!) I mean, why didn't Jack just go to, I don't know, Denver or someplace and pick up somebody for a one-night-stand?

It's just an awful long time to keep a tantrum going.

[nakymaton]

I disagree that he went ‘tearing off.’ As he leaves Ennis, he looks more like a chair’s been knocked out from under him, not like he’s having a tantrum. He might have driven that long distance because in a daze, feeling like he was nothin’ and going nowhere.

It's more the moment after Jack wipes that tear away, when he sets his face and we hear the engine rev, that it seems like he's angry. That's the moment when I can see Jeff's point.

[JT]

I don't think Jack is being childish, vengeful or throwing tandrums.  I just think he's hurt and desparate, so he's trying to fill that sexual need that he didn't get from Ennis.  Jack expects to get the "complete package" when he drives 14 hrs after the divorce scene.  What I mean is that he expects to get love, sex, intimacy--basically a sweet life with Ennis.  But when Ennis turns him away, his world shatterred and dreams crushed.  He has to pick up the pieces alone and sex is a just a piece of that "sweet life".  I don't think that Jack would ever want to hurt Ennis in any way.

[nakymaton]

Yes, you’re right, Mel. And the way he shakes his head--not just getting the tears out of the way, but perhaps also thinking, “No, I won’t dwell on this” or “I won’t let this hurt me”?

I think of that head shake as an attempt to shake off Ennis (or Jack's love for Ennis). A Love That Will Never Grow Old is playing in the background while Jack's crying, too, and I think of that song as encapsulating Jack's feelings about Ennis. (Especially the line that we actually hear -- that smile in your eyes that can light up the night.) Sometimes the music seems to work in the background to express all the mushiness that the characters can't (or won't) put into words, and that seems especially true right there.

And then Jack shakes his head, like he's trying to get rid of it all, the pain and the love and the memory of moments like the dozy embrace and everything.

And then he drives all the way to Mexico for some meaningless sex.

I think that was the first time after the reunion that Jack tried to quit Ennis. So not revenge, and not just about need, too, but also about trying to forget how much he loved Ennis.

[Jeff Wrangler]

What's odd about driving to Mexico in a fit of anger, though, is that it's such a damn long drive. (And after a 14-hour drive beforehand!) I mean, why didn't Jack just go to, I don't know, Denver or someplace and pick up somebody for a one-night-stand?

That's actually a good question--why all the way to Mexico? Maybe Annie Proulx has the answer. Maybe some of the gay men she talked to in the process of writing the story talked about going, or having gone, to Mexico for gay sex.

Although no one in his right mind ought to consider sex with a hustler in a foreign country as a "safe" activity, perhaps "getting it" in Mexico was considered "safer" in the sense that it was perceived there was less a chance you might run into someone who knows you? As in, "Hi, Jack, what are you doing in Denver?"