Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Lureen's questionnaire
Brown Eyes:
Heya, Katherine I'm taking your suggestion about making questionnaires about other characters. I really, really like Lureen, but like all the others she's complicated. So, here are a series of questions that might help us examine her character and motivations closely (I'm sure some to these questions have been addressed in other threads, but it might be nice to re-consider them in a fresh thread/ context).
***
Do you see Lureen as a woman who's a bit ahead of her time? How would she have been perceived by her local community in Texas during the years this story takes place- first as a well-educated woman with a college degree- also as a fiesty and skillful rodeo participant- as a sexually confident woman (when we see her with Jack, she's even shown as the one on top... which is often used as a feminist metaphor)- and later as a savy business woman who speaks her mind?
Was Lureen already pregnant when she met Jack? Could this be one of the motivating factors behind her "hurry" in the car?
Did she want Bobby?
If her character is understood to be quite confident, etc., why don't we see her standing up to her father? She's worried about disobeying her father in the scene with Jack in the car. She rolls her eyes over her father's shoulders in the nursery in commiseration with Jack, but doesn't say anything to question her father's rudeness and possessiveness over the baby. Why does she mostly sit quietly during the Thanksgiving scene beyond the one stern "Daddy."?
How do you view her use of cosmetics, hair coloring and nail polish throughout the film? Why do these things seem so important to her?
As the years go on, is she bitter only because of the increasingly strained and/ or distant relationship with Jack? Or are there other possible factors?
What was behind her comment about husbands not wanting to dance with their wives?
What was behind her comment about Kappa Phi to LaShawn following LaShawn revealing that she was in Tri Delt?
How early does she suspect or know about Jack's sexuality? What does she really think of the fishing buddy who never comes down to Texas before the phone call?
Is the phone call the first time the whole reality of the situation dawns on Lureen?
After Ennis tells Lureen about herding sheep on Brokeback, she immediately tells Ennis that Jack said Brokeback was his favorite place. What was her motivation in letting Ennis know this? What was her motivation behind encouraging Ennis to visit Jack's parents and to deal with the ashes?
In the story we know that Lureen never met Jack's parents. Why not? Do we get the sense of this fact from the movie too?
Even if Jack and Lureen's marriage is a failure, can they still be interpreted as good friends?
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: atz75 on March 04, 2007, 07:37:14 pm ---What was behind her comment about Kappa Phi to LaShawn following LaShawn revealing that she was in Tri Delt?
--- End quote ---
Snobbery. I'm sure I read in a post somewhere a long time ago that in the social hierarchy of sororities, Kappa Phis had higher social standing than Tri Delts.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: atz75 on March 04, 2007, 07:37:14 pm ---If her character is understood to be quite confident, etc., why don't we see her standing up to her father? She's worried about disobeying her father in the scene with Jack in the car. She rolls her eyes over her father's shoulders in the nursery in commiseration with Jack, but doesn't say anything to question her father's rudeness and possessiveness over the baby. Why does she mostly sit quietly during the Thanksgiving scene beyond the one stern "Daddy."?
--- End quote ---
I've always seen Lureen as afraid of her father. She might be a generally confident individual, and this confidence may have grown with the passage of time as she became successful in business (which might account for why she's able to utter that stern "Daddy" by Thanksgiving 1977), but I don't think that precludes her being afraid of her father when we first meet her.
I don't believe she was already pregnant by someone else when she met Jack. But I have always suspected that she deliberately got pregnant by Jack, so she would have to marry him, as an act of rebellion against her father.
She may have hoped that marrying Jack would get her out from under her father's control. If so, evidently she was disappointed, since she and Jack both ended up working in her father's business.
Brown Eyes:
Thanks for these great replies Jeff!
Do you think that her fear of her father (which, I agree is plausible since he's a pretty imposing guy) and Jack's fear of his father was something Lureen and Jack bonded over?
This leads to one more question that I'm going to add to the questionnaire in the first post.
Even if Jack and Lureen's marriage is a failure, can they still be interpreted as good friends?
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: atz75 on March 04, 2007, 09:17:20 pm ---Thanks for these great replies Jeff!
--- End quote ---
Thanks! :D
--- Quote ---Do you think that her fear of her father (which, I agree is plausible since he's a pretty imposing guy) and Jack's fear of his father was something Lureen and Jack bonded over?
--- End quote ---
Interesting thought. I don't know. ???
--- Quote ---This leads to one more question that I'm going to add to the questionnaire in the first post.
Even if Jack and Lureen's marriage is a failure, can they still be interpreted as good friends?
--- End quote ---
That is a good question. Personally, I'd hesitate to call them good friends because despite Jack's closeted sexuality, I've always felt that he sounds quite bitter when he tells Ennis that he and Lureen could conduct their marriage over the telephone. That suggests to me that by 1981 the marriage had grown cold and even bitter.
I'm thinking, too, of the tone of Lureen's voice as she tells Ennis over the telephone about Jack's heavy drinking, and how she thought Jack meant Brokeback Mountain was his favorite place to get drunk--or that it was "some pretend place." I think she sounds contemptuous.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version