Alma and the second postcard

[shortfiction]

Well, maybe not the second, but the second one that we actually saw onscreen....

I'm referring to the one she finds in the mail when she comes into the apartment with a sack full of groceries.  She reads it, looks over at the bedroom  (?) with a sour expression, then folds it into the newspaper and leaves it on the table.    This finally struck me, many moons later, as a bit odd.   She knows very well who Jack is and what those "fishing trips" are all about.   Why didn't she just rip it up and throw it out? 

[moremojo]

She might have been afraid of making such an empatically negative gesture as ripping up and discarding the postcard. Jack might go asking Ennis at one point, "Did you get my postcard?" One does get the impression that she's hiding the card, perhaps reflecting on what she might want to do about it later. At any rate, it's obvious that there was never any significant rupture in the correspondence (such as it was) between Ennis and Jack.

[injest]

Well, maybe not the second, but the second one that we actually saw onscreen....

I'm referring to the one she finds in the mail when she comes into the apartment with a sack full of groceries.  She reads it, looks over at the bedroom  (?) with a sour expression, then folds it into the newspaper and leaves it on the table.    This finally struck me, many moons later, as a bit odd.   She knows very well who Jack is and what those "fishing trips" are all about.   Why didn't she just rip it up and throw it out? 

well we don't know how long she had lived with the knowledge. There are a lot of women that have cheating husbands that they stay with. Remember we are looking at this thru our eyes....decades after the sexual revolution.

In that time and in that place she didn't have a lot of choices. If she confronted Ennis about the card what would have happened to her and her children? At that time being divorced was a scandal. A shame especially on the woman. I think she didn't get the courage to do anything until she became involved with Malone. and not necessarily an affair but knowing he was interested in her.

[chowhound]

I agree, in the movie it looks as though Alma is actively concealing the postcard, at least for the time being, but in the script her actions are far more neutrall:

Alma enters, puts down a grocery bag, sorts through the mail. There's an electric bill and, beneath it, a postcard addressed to Ennis. She studies the postcard, then puts it back down on the pile of mail as she hears Ennis truck pull up.

In any case, Ennis must have got the postcard.

On the IMBd board I have started a thread on Alma, Jack and Ennis to explore how much Alma knew or could understand about Jack and Ennis. A modern woman who sees her husband kissing another man as passionately as Alma saw Ennis kissing Jack would certainly know exactly what was going on but did Alma? I'm not sure she did. As well, this incident with the postcard comes quite early - in 1969 to be precise. Her trick with the note and the creel case comes later, in 1972 or73.

[injest]

I don't think she knew very much at all. She was from an isolated area and had little contact with the outside world.

[LauraGigs]

She seems to be looking behind her as if Ennis is nearby — close enough that he may catch her in the act of ripping/throwing out the postcard.

In any case, the text on the card refers to a trip that's already set up:  "See you in a couple weeks. Fish should be jumping."  Destroying the card will accomplish nothing.  (She's helpless to stop the momentum of their relationship, and probably knows it.)   

[shortfiction]

She seems to be looking behind her as if Ennis is nearby — close enough that he may catch her in the act of ripping/throwing out the postcard.

In any case, the text on the card refers to a trip that's already set up:  "See you in a couple weeks. Fish should be jumping."  Destroying the card will accomplish nothing.  (She's helpless to stop the momentum of their relationship, and probably knows it.)   

Ah, you're right!   There must have been a setting-up postcard some time before that and I assume, then, that Ennis would have gotten without any interception or interference.

Thanks for these replies.

[malina]

I think... maybe she's not so much trying to hide the card from Ennis as from herself. Does that make any sense? What I mean is, maybe she doesn't have any real intention of hiding the card from Ennis, but that doesn't mean she wants to be staring at it, or that she's willing to just hand it to him. Maybe she's being a wee bit passive aggressive, putting it where he could overlook it.
 
I think there is a lot of great subtle acting of that nature in the role of Alma. This reminds me of a discussion I read one time as to why Alma picks up her purse, as if she's going somewhere, right after she sees Jack and Ennis kissing. It doesn't make so much sense, logically. She's not going anywhere, and she knows she isn't. Ennis has already vetoed her 'knife and fork' idea, and they don't have a sitter, and she wouldn't have walked out and left the girls in any case. But reaching for her purse... I think it's an automatic, instinctive, and partly symbolic thing. She wants to flee the situation, even though she can't. So she picks up her purse in preparation, as if she's got somewhere to go.

I think it's the same with the postcard. She's not really taking action. It's just a small, private gesture, symbolic of what she'd really like to do - to make Jack, and his influence on both their lives, conveniently disappear. It's like she's thinking with her actions.

It also shows the powerlessness of Alma. She can only make vain little gestures toward what she'd really like to do..

[chowhound]

Insightful post, Malina!

[Front-Ranger]

Is this the postcard you're referring to?

[shortfiction]

Yep. that's the one.   
And Happy Birthday to you!

[serious crayons]

Ennis probably never saw the postcard, but that's OK because it doesn't impart any essential information. Obviously, their plans about where and when to meet have already been made.

I see Alma's reaction to the postcard as symbolic of her whole reaction to Ennis and Jack. Ripping up the postcard would be assertive, active, definitive. It would be making a move, however small, to interfere with their relationship. But she doesn't do that, to either the postcard or the men.

Instead, she lets the postcard remain but buries it where it can't be seen, just as she buries and hides her knowledge about what's going on with her husband.

We've talked about the newspaper headline "honey" overlapping with Jack saying "honey" to Lureen in the following scene. Meanwhile, Alma is burying the secret of her marriage under a false endearment that helps maintain the appearance of a happy relationship.