Did Ennis change his attitude toward his sexuality after Jack´s death?

[Dagi]

Do you think Ennis moved on, or came out, or started a relationship with another man some time after Jack's death?

I'll come back later and add my own opinion, have to feed the starving pack downstairs now.

[delalluvia]

No.

If you believe Jack was murdered, then that would have vindicated Ennis' belief in how risky coming out would be, so he wouldn't even try again.  And if you believe Jack wasn't murdered - and I'm not a fan of the movie's ending so I stick with the story's ending - Ennis doesn't change.  He 'stands' things, so he ends up alone.

[Clyde-B]

Hi Dagi,

  I don't believe Ennis changed his idea about his sexuality after Jack died, but I think he admitted to himself that he loved Jack.  Which is, to me, what was really important. 

  I think that's what Annie Proulx means by the line:  "There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe..."  That line means to me, he knew he loved Jack, but he still tried to believe he was straight.

   I give it this interpretation because I was once in this exact same position of loving someone of the same sex and trying to assure myself that I was straight.  (I have since moved to the position that I don't care what you call it, all I really care about is who I love.   )

I don't think Ennis would have taken another male lover on his own, but if he had run into another man that saw him for what he was, really valued him, really cared, and gently pursued him, I think something might have developed.

[Dagi]

Thanks Delalluvia and Clyde-B for your opinions.

I believe Jack was murdered, and I think Ennis never really doubted it, although he never knew for sure. That can only have comfirmed, IMHO, his notion that being homosexual/living openly with a guy is dangerous in the given environment.

But I want to believe what you said in your last line, that since he finally seemed to have accepted that he was truly in love with Jack, and because he couldn't save Jack from his fate by making this big sacrifice of not living with him, that these two facts together could possibly have made him open for another man, if the right one came along.

[Dagi]

Thanks for your thoughts, Gary. Yeah, it was pretty courageous that he came out to some extent, and we can only hope that he'd find love. In fact the sceneries we've made up in so many fanfics are too comforting to not be true. And it doesn't matter whether he thought of himself as gay or what ever, but that he admitted to loving Jack and being loved by him.

[Artiste]

Very interesting question Dagi, and thanks too for the replies all of you!!

May I say one real story of mine, regarding this as a possible answer to your question:


One of my neighbours, when I grew up, was not far from me. He lived with his aunt, since her husband had died. I delivered newpapers to their small house (like Jack parents house). And we became somewhat friends all 3 of us!! She helped me start a newpaper, and encouraged me to live, etc., too, like doing my studies as important in life! One day, we all went Winter fishing and I saved his life, and it was then that I found out that he was gay likely, but after his aunt's death, I heard he married (to a female here) and continued to work in the mine, but became much more of a drunkard, had no kids and was killed drunk in a car accident. So, I figure, Ennis would not change his way of life, since society dictated that he be straight!!

Let us say, that that was yesterday as in the BM movie!!

But I have another which is to-day living! You want to know it too??

Hugs!!

[LauraGigs]

When he made that phone call to Lureen, that was a bold move on his part.  He was essentially "caming out" to some extent.  He was admitting to someone else for the first time that Jack had been important to him.  And he did the same thing when he went to Lightening Flat to meet with Jack's parents.

That's exactly how I feel: he essentially came out then.  And interestingly, it was to the very people whose reaction might be the scariest:  Jack's wife and parents! 

On another note, I'm always surprised to read that Ennis was only around 40 at the end.  In the last scene with his daughter, he seems SO OLD...

(I read that for their later scenes, Heath and Jake were each directed to walk and move as if they were 40. But at first they walked as if they were about 70, because to them 40 "sounded so old".)  LOL

[Artiste]

40 so old, yes, yes?? Non, non!!

Being scared all the time since you do not know if you will be murdered because of being gay, doesn't age Ennis and Jack?? Maybe??

Mistake by the director? Is that hetero-normalizing?

Hugs!  May All Ennis be safe in this World!!

[LauraGigs]

I think all the stress Ennis lived under definitely aged him.

[twistedude]

Answer to original question: Yeah...finally.

[Artiste]

And even much more than that! Is... aging quickly BOTH men!!

Did anyone count how many times Ennis was/is depressed?? Heart attack...maybe too??

How many times Ennis even had to change those (sexual) attitudes??

HUgs!!

[Sandy]

I don't care what you call it, all I really care about is who I love.   )

I think that you have reached the perfect conclusion. 

I don't think Ennis would have taken another male lover on his own, but if he had run into another man that saw him for what he was, really valued him, really cared, and gently pursued him, I think something might have developed.

I hope so.  I think that when Ennis spoke aloud in the final scene showed his progress.  I don't think he ever actually sat down and considered his feelings for Jack, they were what they were.  For him to promise Jack, whatever it was, and promise it aloud, showed how far his grief had got him.  Hopefully, he will see the importance of love and welcome it if he is lucky to find it again.   

[Scott6373]

Well if you go by the circumstance which prompted AP to write the story, I would say no.  That old cowboy was alone in that bar, which I consider the real end of the story, so I doubt that Ennis would have ever moved beyond where he was at the end of the written story.  He may have been able to acknowledge it to himself, but I would bet he avoided thinking about his sexuality at all costs.

[Jeff Wrangler]

  I don't believe Ennis changed his idea about his sexuality after Jack died, but I think he admitted to himself that he loved Jack.  Which is, to me, what was really important. 

  I think that's what Annie Proulx means by the line:  "There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe..."  That line means to me, he knew he loved Jack, but he still tried to believe he was straight.

   I give it this interpretation because I was once in this exact same position of loving someone of the same sex and trying to assure myself that I was straight.  (I have since moved to the position that I don't care what you call it, all I really care about is who I love.   )

That's an interesting take on that line, Clyde. My own has always been a bit bleaker, I'm afraid: What he knew, thanks to John Twist, was that shortly before he died, Jack was talking about bringing some other guy up to Lightning Flat. What he tried to believe, was that Jack really hadn't quit him.

I agree with you that Ennis came to understand how much he loved Jack--and how much Jack loved him--but any notion of Ennis "coming out" or being more open about his sexual orientation, or finding another male lover, is completely foreign to my understanding of him.

[Artiste]

So Ennis was an one man's man Jeff Wrangler?? Is that it? In the BM movie?

How do yoiu figure that out, may I ask?

Hugs!

[moremojo]

Approaching the short story in its finalized form (with the italicized prologue in place), it would appear that Ennis never moved on emotionally, and almost certainly never entered into a relationship with another man. There are clues that Ennis has aged significantly in the prologue, and that many years have passed since Jack's death, and yet he is clearly alone (and subject to his daughter and son-in-law's hopeful kindness) and emotionally fixated on Jack, who now lives on only in his (grotesquely sad) dreams. I do think that Ennis by this point has owned up to his love for Jack ("Jack, I swear--"), but there is no clear indication that Ennis has reconciled himself to any idea that he is homosexual.

The film's ending has a more redemptive feeling than the story. We not only see evidence that Ennis finally realizes what Jack and he shared together, but also that Ennis has learned valuable lessons from his experience with Jack and is beginning to incorporate those lessons into his life. I have never felt that even movie-Ennis was likely to meet and cultivate another man in a romantic or sexual way, but I do have a strong sense that he has at last admitted his own queerness to himself, and recognizes beauty and strength in it, insofar as it describes his powerful and lasting feelings for Jack.

[Artiste]

Thanks moremojo!!

So Jack changed often?

And Ennis changed only once?

Puzzling??

Hugs!!