Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
getting hit hard by offhand revelations (story discussion)
Front-Ranger:
Those observations are so sweet, goadra...and I'll have to think about the first two in connection with my "Life is Messy" topic!!
Front-Ranger:
I've noticed that, since this topic was posted, I add more postscripts to my PMs, emails, and letters. And I usually try to put in something that throws the reader for a loop!!
I don't think we've catalogued all the p.s.es in the story yet and discussed what they mean.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on January 30, 2007, 11:41:20 am ---I've noticed that, since this topic was posted, I add more postscripts to my PMs, emails, and letters. And I usually try to put in something that throws the reader for a loop!!
--- End quote ---
You mean, like, "PS, my jail term starts on Friday" or "PS, the test was positive"? I remember my aunt saying about one of my cousins that every letter she wrote leaves you wanting more information about things. I don't know if my aunt meant it as a compliment but I always wanted to emulate that. (I got a letter once from a friend that actually did say, about a mutual friend, "Craig's going to jail" with NO FURTHER EXPLANATION.)
Scott6373:
This morning, for some odd reason, I started thinking about the story. Not the film, but Proulx’s story. Specifically I started mulling over the word mountain, and how it relates to the story of Jack and Ennis.
moun•tain (moun'tən)
[Middle English mountaine, from Old French montaigne, muntaigne, from Vulgar Latin* montānea, from feminine of * montāneus, of a mountain, from Latin montānus, from mōns, mont-, mountain.]
noun
1. A natural elevation of the earth's surface having considerable mass, generally steep sides, and a height greater than that of a hill.
2.
a. A large heap: a mountain of laundry.
b. A huge quantity: a mountain of trouble.
Why did Ms. Proulx choose to set that fateful summer on a mountain? It certainly didn’t need to be set there. There are many flat areas of Wyoming. Also, why did she go out of her way to state that Ennis and Jack never returned to Brokeback Mountain. Why would she make that great distinction?
Is the mountain, and the use of the word meant to allude to something other than the place? Could she be comparing the immovable presence of homophobia, or even the men's love for each other, to that of the mountain?
serious crayons:
I think this is a clue:
There were only the two of them on the mountain flying in the euphoric, bitter air, looking down on the hawk's back and the crawling lights of vehicles on the plain below, suspended above ordinary affairs and distant from tame ranch dogs barking in the dark hours.
On the mountain, they are suspended above the "ordinary affairs" of society, distant from "tameness." In other words, they're in the wild, in nature, removed from society's homophobia. The passage has an unworldly, almost heaven-like sound to it: flying, euphoric, looking down on a hawk ...
And then, when they left:
As they descended the slope Ennis felt he was in a slow-motion, but headlong, irreversible fall.
He's falling from their place above the world, back to society's "ordinary affairs" and homophobia, and the process is irreversible.
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