Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum

Masculinity in Brokeback Mountain

(1/4) > >>

Espresso:
Hello to everyone! I'm writing my course paper on topic "Masculinity in Annie Proulx's short story Brokeback Mountain" I've just finished my theoreticall part of the course paper, and now i'm lookin forward to write analysis of masculinity in the textual representation of this story. I've couple of minds in my head according to this topic, but in general I need your HELP! :) So i've decided to divide my analysis into two parts: 1.analysis of spiritual world of major characters 2. analysis of external world. I'm going to talk about poor childhood and it's influence in part 1, while in second part of my analysis i'm going to cover some social problems (like homophobia). The problem is that it's not enough for this paper, therefore i please you to help me, i'll appreciate any kind of help, good minds, quotations, and so on.
 8)
THANK YOU IN ADVANCE. ;)

Front-Ranger:
Hi and welcome, Espresso! I'd say you've come to the right place. First, I'm curious why you have chosen the topic of masculinity as it's portrayed in Brokeback Mountain. It's a great topic, but daunting!! Dividing it into the internal and external aspects is good and helps organize the paper.

My first thought is that Annie Proulx starts the story, after the prologue, by describing the two young men and prominently mentioning where they are from. Ennis is from Sage, in the extreme SW corner of Wyoming, and Jack is from Lightning Flat way up on the NE Wyoming border. Proulx nearly always places her characters in a setting because she believes that our environment shapes our character. Plus, their origins show how they were marginalized people from remote, estranged areas, nearly ghost towns. Ennis and Jack came together in the Big Horn Mountains which make a backbone down the north central part of Wyoming.

Shakesthecoffecan:
What stands out for me is that we are given (in the short story) a glimpse into each of their childhoods, with Ennis it is the murder of Earl, and with Jack it is the "hard scene" that Ennis remembers Jack talking about later, it comes in almost as an afterthought.

With the Earl murder you have Ennis being instilled with a sense of danger, that this sort of behavior will result in death, and of course he finds himself facing that situation in his own life. With Jack, we have no such points of reference saying the behavior is wrong, only his father imprinting on him he is more of a man than Jack will ever be because he has a foreskin.

Espresso:
Big Thanks!! these posts enriched me with some material. :) I'm thinking now how to explicate the topic of inner feelings, yeah, argument of childhood is great, but I need more here... Talking about external world, I think that the scene with that observing guy is very useful, because it implicates the way how people of different sexual orientation were threatened in 1960'. As I understand, poor childhood of Ennis and Jack (To be more concrete, their indelible experiences related to gays), forces to hide their feelings, because it was inappropriate for that time society. Great example of how they are scared to confess, is a negation even to each other "I ain't queer" says Ennis "I'm too" says Jack. On the other hand, this scene makes wonder are they really gays, or they are just two allied souls, whom sex is just the highest kind of expression of their feelings??

If you will have some more good minds, quotations, scenes, or other useful stuff for my analysis on major characters inner world, and how they are threatened in the external world, don't be shy write it down, you are welcome to do this.

Big thanks for YOU TWO again.  O0

Front-Ranger:
Thank you, for coming along and asking these interesting questions! Your comments reminded me of a fascinating discussion that atz75 started after she viewed the movie with some other members of BetterMost. In the story, AP talks about Ennis getting sick after he and Jack split up for the first time. In the movie, this is expanded with a stranger walking by, hesitating, and then Ennis yells "What the f** you lookin' at?"

And later, Ennis asks Jack if all the people out on the pavement know. No, they don't know, or care, but in Ennis's internal world this is a matter of life or death. Jack doesn't see it that way either. He sees Ennis's internal strugglese as a way to get closer to Ennis, so he says, "Maybe you oughta get out of there...move to Texas." But Ennis knows he can never move away from his fears.

Amanda's thread "What Are You Lookin At", stalled after just three posts, way back in 2008. It should be revived!!

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page