Throughout the film, we see scenes of fabric being laundered. The first time we encounter it is a jarring scene, the day after the tent scene, when Jack is doing the laundry in the stream, wearing nothing but his boots. He beats Ennis’ shirt with a stick to clean it. Later, we see Alma hanging up the laundry on a clothesline. Ennis comes in to the house while she is scrubbing the laundry on an old fashioned washboard. Later, they move to an apartment that is over a Laundromat, and they argue amidst the steam that boils forth from the vents. In the last scene, Ennis discovers Alma, jr.’s sweater that she has left behind, and he carefully folds it and places it in his closet.