Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
The mettle of a man
Front-Ranger:
Another metal item mentioned in the story and movie was wire. Right in the middle of TS1, we are told that Ennis ran full throttle whether fence mending or money spending (I count three metal items in that phrase!) and later on he's running the baler all month. That's why Jack and Ennis have to give up their August together (actually, it turns out, their life together, sob). Jack listens to LaShawn going on about Randall trying to hold a car engine together with chewing gum and baling wire. It's Ennis who's most often associated with the wire, using it to tightly bind or fence something in, so true to his character.
Lynne:
Truman has found another possible metal/mettle allusion in the Uncle Harold/pneumonia scene in the guise of a crescent:
http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php?topic=3753.msg148107#msg148107
It supports the idea of 'quicksilver Jack'.
Of course the crescent train-of-thought also leads me to wrenches and then to tire irons.
:'(
Front-Ranger:
Thanks! Metal keeps popping up everywhere! This one is truly arcane.
Front-Ranger:
I just realized that fishing doesn't use much metal. The fly-fishing rod is bamboo, the creel case is straw or bamboo, the line is plastic, and only the sliver of hook is metal. What Jack and Ennis preferred was hunting, using a gun and knife.
Lynne:
Do fishing rods not have metal eyes every so often to thread the line through? Modern ones do, I think.
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