Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
getting hit hard by offhand revelations (story discussion)
Front-Ranger:
I can't remember when I've been so pleased to welcome someone to the 1,000 posts club, and I'm so happy you made it here Mel! Welcome Melcome, now I'm dancing around like there was an August snowstorm on the mountain!! May there be many more on any ol thread you like! I know you have way more revelations to share with us cause you've kept them bottled up for a long while. And you have a hard head so you can be hit hard and not even feel it!!
Front-Ranger:
Here's a sentence that is hitting me hard today:
--- Quote ---He had wanted to be a sophomore, felt the word carried a kind of distinction,
--- End quote ---
Poor Ennis, didn't get to be a sophomore because the transmission went on the pickup truck, and he was pitched into ranch work. Where I went to school, the word sophomore carried no distinction whatsoever, because students entered high school in the 10th grade, so there were no freshmen. Sophomores were at the low end of the totem pole.
Ennis wanted the softness of words and study and learning, but what he got was hard work and privation. :(
Brown Eyes:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on February 24, 2008, 04:40:49 pm ---Here's a sentence that is hitting me hard today:
Poor Ennis, didn't get to be a sophomore because the transmission went on the pickup truck, and he was pitched into ranch work. Where I went to school, the word sophomore carried no distinction whatsoever, because students entered high school in the 10th grade, so there were no freshmen. Sophomores were at the low end of the totem pole.
Ennis wanted the softness of words and study and learning, but what he got was hard work and privation. :(
--- End quote ---
It is an interesting detail to focus on Lee. Somehow the idea that Ennis loved the idea of becoming a sophomore (or more generally, the idea of advancing in school) indicates that early on he had high hopes for himself or that when he was young he had a capacity to be a "dreamer" (clearly something usually more readily associated with Jack), which seems to have been beaten down through all the hardships he had to endure just to simply survive once his parents died.
Front-Ranger:
This thread is featured on the news banner today!! Yee-haw for offhand revelations! And for the story and movie that inspired 'em!!
Lynne:
I am now trying to reconcile or resolve Ennis running 'full throttle...money spending' and the story being at least in part about poverty. I guess I am not seeing a lot of evidence that Ennis (story or movie) is a big spender. Story!Jack, on the other hand, gradually enjoys a higher standard of living, especially after LD dies, and he gets his vague managerial . And we see Movie!Jack having nicer trucks and camping gear as time progresses.
So while I understand that Ennis does not have the ambition that Alma wants him to have (to go to work for the power company, etc.) I don't see the full throttle money spending either. He's concerned about paying his child support. Maybe it's just that there's never enough.
This post more likely belongs in the thread about BBM being about economics and poverty, but I cannot find it right now...too many political threads to sort through. If anyone knows offhand where it is, please let me know, or move it for me!
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