(Movie-Ennis, on the other hand, says his brother and sister "did the best they could.")
But given how little movie-Ennis says about anything, it wouldn't surprise me if he didn't have the same traumatic childhood, but is less willing to talk about it.
Yes, I think "did the best they could" is also evidence of movie-Ennis's willingness to make do with beans.
So I'm wondering if story-Ennis simply dealt the abuse in a different way -- by burying some of his emotions, for instance -- whereas movie-Ennis pulled away from people and withdrew completely?
Yes, that could be. I guess both Ennises had more or less the same childhoods; it's their adult personalities that differ. So yeah, I guess they were just inherently different people. Er, uh, characters.
I wonder if movie-Ennis was simply a more sensitive child in general? That sounds weird, I guess. But you know how Heath described Ennis as being very sensitive to light, to sounds, to everything? Well, the tiny amount of reading I did in child-raising books (before I threw them on the floor and went to chase my own child...) told me that even kids who can't speak yet respond to people in totally different ways.
I can attest to this as the mother of two sons who are close in age but very different in personalities, in ways that were obvious from the time they were about one week old.
My older son, in fact, is probably one of those ultra-sensitive-to-sights-and-sounds kids. And it's hard to imagine anybody whose personality is less like Ennis'. One of our therapists theorized that he responds to the constant barrage of sensory information by insisting on absolute control over his environment. In other words, he doesn't settle for beans, and if you don't fix it, he can't stand it.
