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Discongruency in Brokeback Mountain

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BBM-Cat:
This is an interesting discongruency....'euphoric' implies expansive, while 'bitter' implies an imposed limitation. I was trying to think of an example to FR's question - can something be euphoric and bitter at the same time? This is a great question. I thought about a recent visit to New York City I took last year with my husband and his family - we walked all over and toured the sights including the Empire State Building, Ground Zero (9/11), etc. To me the experience was 'euphoric' because it was exciting, like sensory overload - so much to take in at one time;  at the same time it was also kind of 'bitter' because the environment was unfamiliar to me and I felt out of sorts, and there were certainly some sights on the trip that were harder to deal with emotionally than others (like Ground Zero). The bustle of NYC is certainly a far cry from BBM but maybe the 'euphoric and bitter air' is likened to the mileau that surrounded Jack & Ennis' new found companionship/love relationship and all of it's uncertainties.

Penthesilea:

--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on March 30, 2007, 01:18:10 pm ---Another discongruency that's always interested me is the phrase "the two of them in the euphoric bitter air." Can something be euphoric and bitter at the same time? I'm trying to imagine it.


--- End quote ---


I have two possible interpretations for the "euphoric, bitter air". The first one is more mundane, the second one more spiritual.

The mundane one:
Let me start with the second word, bitter: I always interpreted it as bitterly cold. Now I looked it up in the dictionary and indeed, it said that bitter, when used in regard to weather, wind or air, means bitterly cold.
So although it was bitterly cold on the mountain, and other people would have hated the situation and the job, they didn't mind it - in fact they loved their time up there. They loved it so much, it gave them such a sense of euphoria that they felt like they were able to fly.

The more spiritual one:
The air was euphoric for the same reason as before (liberating, clean, giving them so much sense of freedom and happyness they thought they could fly). And the "bitter" part is meant as a foreshadowing of the things to come and as a reminder that even in their Garden Eden, the world was not perfect: Aguirre watched them (and this is told to the reader in ther very next sentence!), and both knew that they could not stay on the mountain forever, that everything has to come to an end.

I can imagine things that are euphoric and bitter at the same time (bitter not in the sense of cold, but in the sense of hard/ difficult/hurtful). BBM-cat's example is a good one. Or imagine a person who was once very important and/or beloved to you, but you parted in anger - and then meeting this person for the first time after years. Think also of the word bittersweet.

brokebackjack:
now that is a beautiful post....

Front-Ranger:
I agree.

We live on conflict. I mean, what else can you expect from a species that gets around by first falling forward and then catching itself, by alternatively balancing and unbalancing on its caliper legs??

The music of the movie expresses this with its interspersal of harmonic and dissonant chords.

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