Okay ... so now I am going to open another can of worms …. the whole “dozy embrace” flashback. Both the short story and the screenplay state the following:
“Nothing mars this moment for Jack, even though he knows that Ennis does not embrace him face to face because he does not want to see or feel that it is Jack he holds …. “
I have my own take on this, but before I give my dissertation, I would like to hear all of your opinions!!! ![Wink ;)](http://bettermost.net/forum/Smileys/cowboy/wink.gif)
OMG! Not this one! This is truly a can a worms to behold! what are you tryin' to do, crash the BetterMost server? Ok, here is my, literal, superficial, non-freudian explanation. I am sure I should be seeing waaaay deeper in this murky pond, but however.....
That sentence, the first time I read the story and became aware of its existence, was at first glance THE most WTF sentences of this story. I hated its very existence, could not understand that after all we (Jack & Ennis & I) had been through, that sadist Annie Proulx throws that four sentence paragraph in there,
just to mess everything up....
Later, that dozy embrace solidified in his memory as the single moment of artless, charmed happiness in their separate and difficult lives. Nothing marred it, even the knowledge that Ennis would not then embrace him face to face because he did not want to see nor feel that it was Jack he held. And maybe, he thought, they'd never got much farther than that. Let be, let be.Anyway to make a long story short, I had a lot of trouble understanding the first and the second sentences, the third sentence
I hated, and the fourth, well, "Let be"?
...that's a bit vague, hmmm, let what be?? I hated it, and I was mad at AP for ever writing it and spoiling my illusion that Ennis
did love Jack.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Now, now that I have been enlightened by you fine folks, you BetterMostians you, here is what it means: Ennis did love Jack, but he still did not believe himself to be gay, that is why he could not embrace Jack face to face. AP's second and third lines in that paragraph are meant to be implied and to be understood by depiction of the dozy embrace. Does that make sense? I hope someone else can understand it, I barely can myself!!
![laugh :laugh:](http://bettermost.net/forum/Smileys/cowboy/laugh.gif)