Author Topic: The Sink  (Read 7101 times)

Offline Shakesthecoffecan

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The Sink
« on: March 31, 2008, 10:24:18 am »
Okay, I don't recall this one ever being discussed:

Why did Ennis urninate in the sink?

 :-X
"It was only you in my life, and it will always be only you, Jack, I swear."

mvansand76

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Re: The Sink
« Reply #1 on: March 31, 2008, 11:08:27 am »
Okay, I don't recall this one ever being discussed:

Why did Ennis urninate in the sink?

 :-X

Otherwise he would have had to go outside and it was cold and windy outside?  :-\ ;)

Offline Shakesthecoffecan

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Re: The Sink
« Reply #2 on: March 31, 2008, 11:33:57 am »
Otherwise he would have had to go outside and it was cold and windy outside?  :-\ ;)

Perhaps.

In the movie we see a toilet in the back ground, but in the short story it has that descripition of his releiving himself. It makes me think his trailer is much smaller, maybe even like a camper, or a caravan I think it is called in Europe in a English-centric way.
"It was only you in my life, and it will always be only you, Jack, I swear."

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: The Sink
« Reply #3 on: March 31, 2008, 11:42:38 am »
Maybe it's related to the leftover coffee he warms up. On Brokeback Mountain, he drank fresh perked coffee and urinated in nature; in the flatlands, he drank leftover coffee and urinated in the sink. Contrasting his two different lives.

Also remember that Alma turns on the faucet in the story after she said, "That line hadn't touched water in its life."
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Offline opinionista

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Re: The Sink
« Reply #4 on: March 31, 2008, 11:48:10 am »
Okay, I don't recall this one ever being discussed:

Why did Ennis urninate in the sink?

 :-X

He probably had no toilet in the trailer. I've never been in a trailer, I've only seen them in movies so I don't know much about it.
Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement. -Mark Twain.

Offline Penthesilea

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Re: The Sink
« Reply #5 on: March 31, 2008, 12:43:13 pm »
Perhaps.

In the movie we see a toilet in the back ground, but in the short story it has that descripition of his releiving himself. It makes me think his trailer is much smaller, maybe even like a camper, or a caravan I think it is called in Europe in a English-centric way.


Like these?




The pic is from you  :laugh:. I found it here:

When I think about the wind blowing down the curved length of the trailer, I have a vision of the type of trailers below. I imagine on a ranch they would have a few old trailers like these in leiu of a bunkhouse or something else.


BTW: this is the type of trailer I also picture when reading the words "the curved length of the traier"




On the topic of the sink peeing: I agree with most people that Ennis's trailer probably didn't have a toilet. This would be the practical answer.
Still leaves the question, why Annie Proulx included it in her short story. I think for one it's part of the gritty realism which marks all her stories in Close Range. Rough-mannered and rough-spoken are the men she writes about as well as the style she chooses to do so.
Another reason is it shows Ennis's lack of material goods.

And it has something sad to it. A sense of not caring, of being impassive. Just letting the days go by ...
Which I think is Ennis's state of mind after Jack't death.


Offline Shakesthecoffecan

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Re: The Sink
« Reply #6 on: March 31, 2008, 01:35:57 pm »
Exactly, I don't know why that did not occure to me at the time. I believe now the Ennis of the story had running water, but not toilet facilities.  :'(
"It was only you in my life, and it will always be only you, Jack, I swear."

Offline cricket99999

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Re: The Sink
« Reply #7 on: March 31, 2008, 03:54:39 pm »
I believe now the Ennis of the story had running water, but not toilet facilities.  :'( 

Really?  Then where does he go "number two"?  I assumed he had toilet facilities, but pissed in the sink if he felt like it.  "Fuck it, why not."  Maybe it saved him a step or two.  He's a bachelor, lives alone, depressed, sets his own rules, etc.

?

Offline Shakesthecoffecan

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Re: The Sink
« Reply #8 on: March 31, 2008, 04:54:22 pm »
Really?  Then where does he go "number two"?  I assumed he had toilet facilities, but pissed in the sink if he felt like it.  "Fuck it, why not."  Maybe it saved him a step or two.  He's a bachelor, lives alone, depressed, sets his own rules, etc.

?

Well that could be too, I had in mind there might be an outhouse somewhere.
"It was only you in my life, and it will always be only you, Jack, I swear."

Offline myprivatejack

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Re: The Sink
« Reply #9 on: April 01, 2008, 05:41:32 am »
Really?  Then where does he go "number two"?  I assumed he had toilet facilities, but pissed in the sink if he felt like it.  "Fuck it, why not."  Maybe it saved him a step or two.  He's a bachelor, lives alone, depressed, sets his own rules, etc.
?

That's right.He felt depressed,but at the same time,he felt free to do as he pleased.A man alone who had been educated in a rigid -and wrong- sense of masculinity,ended by being a real mess in his daily routine,without nobody by his side or nothing in his future to fight for.
I like your silences,quiet conversations of evident sensations,where our words are lifeĀ“s tinsels.
The lost illusions are the found truths.