TOTW 01/08: Do you think Jack was murdered or was it an accident?

[louisev]

In terms of the "rareness" of a particular cause of death... it is often said that death by lightning strike is a rare event, but I looked this up and "death by lightning strike" claims an average of 82 lives per year in the USA - not exactly "as rare as getting hit by lightning."   Though the perception of "being hit by lightning" as being extremely rare continues.  However, I have personally known three people who have been struck by lightning - stranger than fiction.

[serious crayons]

My former next-door neighbor says several members of his family has been struck at least once.

[RouxB]

I think it was meant to be ambiguous but if I HAD to choose, I'd lean more towards accident.

[Toast]

Annie Proulx wrote (as quoted above)

Ennis didn't know about the accident for months

But the important thing is that story Ennis thought it was the tire iron while he talked to Lureen
But he decided that he knew it was the tire iron while he listened to John C. Twist.

Ennis has to live with what he believes - and this feeds his guilt that he could have saved Jack by saying yes to the sweet life.
=========================
Things are not so clear in the movie, .....

[Artiste]

Hi Toast!

I lost you! May I request quotes from the book, concerning that?

Details are needed please.

Hugs!

[delalluvia]

I agree with this interpretation, for just those reasons. Also, there was foreshadowing in the story that Ennis would respond that way. When he and Jack were in the motel, he said that if his dad saw them "you bet he'd go get his tire iron."

Some people say, what are the chances of Jack being killed in such a freak tire accident? Well, slim. But that kind of explosion does happen. Are they any smaller than the chances that Jack would be killed the exact same way that Ennis had always feared?

Plus, wouldn't Jack's body have been examined by someone who could tell the difference from the effects of an accident as Lureen describes and the effects of what Ennis imagines?

Ennis has a good reason to suspect murder -- he'd been fearing it all his life. But what is OUR reason, as readers, for suspecting it? All we know is that Ennis suspects it. If Ennis had said, "Oh, OK," in response to Lureen's account and never considered the idea of murder, we'd have no reason to suspect murder, either. But again, we know Ennis is paranoid, so why are his fears a good basis for ours?

The story works better for me as literature if Jack's death is accidental. It's much more ironic and sad to think that Ennis' paranoia is so strong that it leaves him eternally uncertain.

I used to be in the "we aren't meant to know" club, but more recently I've come around to this view.

What Louise and Crayons said.

Artistically, poetically, karmic-ly, I'm inclined toward ambiguousness since to believe murder as a strong possibility just lays in the round hole like a round peg.  However, what always hit me the most about BBM is its realism.  And realistically speaking, it's more tragic and more common in real life that Jack died from an accident on the road. 

   

[RouxB]

Hey Toast-long time no talk! 

I'm interested in your John Twist angle-how do you think
EdM's conversation with JT convinced him that Jack was murdered?

[southendmd]

While talking with Lureen:

...By the time someone came along he had drowned in his own blood.

No, he thought, they got him with the tire iron.


But, we also have this at the end of Lureen's phone call:

The huge sadness of the northern plains rolled down on him. He didn't know which way it was, the tire iron or a real accident, blood choking down Jack's throat and nobody to turn him over.



Here's the section regarding Old Man Twist from the story:

...Then, this spring he's got another one's goin a come up here with him and build a place and help run the ranch, some ranch neighbor a his from down in Texas. He's goin a split up with his wife and come back here. So he says. But like most a Jack's ideas it never come to pass.

So now he knew it had been the tire iron.

[serious crayons]

Sure wish some of you guys had been participating in a debate on this very topic a couple of months ago on imdb. It got very heated, to say the least. There were two of us arguing in favor of accidental death. One participant wound up calling me homophobic, even a virtual gay basher, because he equated my belief that Jack wasn't murdered with a denial that gay men are often attacked in real life.

It got really, really ugly.    Consequently, I don't go to imdb much anymore.

[Brown Eyes]

Heya,

I'm posting my answer here before I read other replies as I cast my vote here.  So, I apologize if I reiterate something that's been said here already.

My main answer is that we're not supposed to know.  Of course neither the film nor the story give us enough evidence to definitively say one way or the other.  (And, after this, for the record what I say here is based on the film.. since I'm more of a film person when it comes to BBM).

But, I do think it's also important that we all draw our own conclusions or work-out interpretations of the scenario for ourselves.  So, my secondary answer is that I have a hunch that he probably was murdered (but again, I have no real basis for proving this... it just seems like it might be the case to me).  I say this because, from the very beginning, I find the accident scenario - in the way that Lureen describes it - a little too far-fetched.

In the end, all we know is what Lureen says and what Ennis thinks.  I do sort of think Ennis's immediate response (of immediately jumping to the murder scenario) is a little bit a sign of his "paranoia" or a sign of how extensive and powerful his fears about violence have become.  I think the murder vs. accident question has a lot to do with whether the audience believes Ennis knew Jack better of if Lureen knew Jack better.  And by "knew" I mean understand both the circumstances of his daily/practical life vs. knew his inner-self.