Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
getting hit hard by offhand revelations (story discussion)
nakymaton:
He fell in love with Jack, but he kept trying to deny that he was in love with Jack. He fell in love with Jack, but he kept trying to fall in love with women.
I guess I just think that it took something extreme to break through Ennis's internalized homophobia. Something that might only happen once.
And... well, if a person falls in love with exactly one person, and that person is of the opposite sex, wouldn't that person be considered "straight"?
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: nakymaton on November 30, 2006, 01:19:49 pm ---Is there a large difference between "fulfilling societal norms" and "proving his masculinity," especially in Wyoming in 1963?
--- End quote ---
Yes, I think there is, though maybe it's a question of "proving it to whom?" If by "proving his masculinity" you mean "to himself," I think that requires a level of sophistication and self-awareness--not to say education--that I think Ennis lacks. I never bring my copy of the story with me to work (Lord, it's been months since I last wrote that statement! ;D ), but I think I remember that in the blurb on the jacket it says that Ennis and Jack marry women and father children "because that's what cowboys do." That's what people do in Wyoming--and probably anywhere else in small-town America--in 1963, and probably still do in a lot of places today.
However, I also think "proving his masculinity" comes closer to the mark in describing what's going on when Ennis hauls off and decks Jack in return for Jack's giving him what was clearly an accidental bloody nose. If you're a man, and somebody hits you, you hit back--preferably harder than he hit you.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: mlewisusc on November 30, 2006, 01:23:49 pm ---So twice Ennis tells Jack that he (Ennis) sleeps with women, and once comments that he enjoys it. Is he in fact sleeping with the waitress? Does he actually enjoy it? If he's lying, is he trying to prove his heterosexuality to himself or to Jack? I imagine the answer would come back "both."
--- End quote ---
My initial knee-jerk response was, "Of course he's sleeping with the waitress. That's the obvious implication of 'puttin' the blocks to' her."
But now I see your point--is he lying to Jack, as Jack is lying to him about the ranch foreman's wife? Interesting possibility, and not one I'd thought of before.
Get back to work, Jeff, get back to work, Jeff, get back to work. ... ;D
moremojo:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on November 30, 2006, 12:19:44 pm ---Maybe the "longing" Annie observed in the older cowboy in the bar wasn't actually desire for the boys shootin' pool. Maybe that longing was actually for a lost love. Perhaps watching those young cowboys brought back memories of a relationship in his own past, when he, himself, was as young as the boys he was watching when Annie noticed him. Perhaps there was an element of simply longing for his own lost youth in there, too.
--- End quote ---
This is a very poignant speculation, and shows good insight into the multiple nuances of the human character.
I definitely think that Ennis (perhaps more Movie-Ennis than Story-Ennis) is marked by enduring longing for his lost youth, the time when he "had it all before him" in Jack's company on the mountain. I don't think it is just Jack in and of himself that Ennis pines for, but also everything that Jack comes to represent to Ennis.
moremojo:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on November 30, 2006, 02:45:40 pm ---But now I see your point--is he lying to Jack, as Jack is lying to him about the ranch foreman's wife? Interesting possibility, and not one I'd thought of before.
--- End quote ---
Of course, the potential ambiguity of this detail does not exist in the film adaptation. I wonder how different the movie might have been if Cassie had been left out, and the waitress only existed, like in the story, as a passing and possibly ambivalent reference by Ennis?
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