the Earl flashback

[starboardlight]

With a potentially murderous father, no wonder Ennis is hotheaded and violent himself. Also, whether or not the dad actually killed Earl, the very fact that Ennis thinks he would have been capable of it says it all.

and it's not just that he thinks the man is capable, it's spending the rest of his childhood and teen years thinking that his father, who is suppose to protect him, would just as soon kill him for being who he is. can you imagine feeling that way about your own father? Ennis would have lived in constant fear. that would be just as, if not more, traumatic than seeing Earl's body.

[serious crayons]

Oh, you're right, starboardlight! Good point. That is so sad. No wonder Ennis is so skilled at suppressing his real feelings.

You know, thinking about it this way makes it so much more awful than the usual, "Oh, Ennis was homophobic because he had a traumatic experience when he was 9." Living with fear for years and years is so much more powerful than that.

It's amazing how once you start thinking about it you can extrapolate so much about their backstories from a few brief but meaningful remarks.

[Brown Eyes]

I wonder if Ennis would ever have allowed himself to be with a man if his father had lived.  It seems likely that his fear of his father (if he was still alive) might have absolutely paralyzed Ennis even more so than we see in the story as it stands.

[serious crayons]

I wonder if Ennis would ever have allowed himself to be with a man if his father had lived.  It seems likely that his fear of his father (if he was still alive) might have absolutely paralyzed Ennis even more so than we see in the story as it stands.

Bet you're right, Amanda!

The other day Ellemeno expressed what I thought was a really good concept: Ennis' internal homophobic lynch mob. Althoughin context I disagreed with her viewpoint (it was on the "would Ennis really kill Jack" thread -- I don't believe he would) this seemed so useful in regard to the question of Ennis' dad's influence that I went back and found it:

The only thing I can add to what's been said is that it always seems to me that part of what Ennis is doing there is making clear that even now, he is aligning himself with the homophobes and not with the homosexual.  It's what he got taught - when you find out that someone has had sex with a man, you kill them.  He could somehow torque it inside of himself that he himself ain't queer, so that doesn't count.  But if Jack has sex with another man, well that is queer, and thus a killable offense.

It's almost like he says it out loud pro forma, for any homophobes who might be listening, just like when on the mountain he leans back to watch Jack ride away, and then quickly catches himself and LOOKS AROUND, to see if anyone else has noticed that he was watching another guy.  He carries his homophobic lynch mob with him everywhere he goes, even way out in the middle of nowhere.

[Brown Eyes]

That's a very interesting post latjoreme.  Thanks for the quote from Ellemeno. 

I do think that Ennis probably carries a lynch mob around in his head, but I disagree with the idea that he alligns himself with them.  I think it's the opposite.   I think he monitors his behavior, checks himself when gazing at Jack, and especially censors his speech (or performaitively says "I ain't no queer") out of fear that the lynch mob is constantly after him.  In the book, while he and Jack are in the motel he says that if his dad was alive and saw them in bed together his could clearly imagine his dad taking that tire iron to them both.  I think that dead and mutilated sheep set off all sorts of fears in Ennis's mind that he too is now one of the potential "sacrificial lambs".  It's important that this vision of death by predator loss comes the morning after Ennis lost his virginity. 

His paranoia seems to be come more and more obvious as the film goes on.  This is clear in the conversation with Jack where he says he worries that people on the pavement look at him "like they know."  He doesn't say what they know. But here, I think Ennis is worried that people can tell he's gay by looking at him somehow.  By this point, whether he likes it or not, I think he's truly beginning to think of himself as gay.  Also, during the argument scene his threat that "all those things that I don't know might get you killed if I come to know them" is interesting in how he phrases it.  He already knows that there are things that Jack is hiding from him.  He already suspects that Jack probably sleeps with other men to get by between their camping trips.  He just can't handle actually hearing Jack admit it.  Ennis likes to control the limits and character of the state of denial that he lives in.  But, these two moments - the "people on the pavement" moment and Ennis admitting he already sort of knows the things Jack thinks he doesn't know- show that somewhere deep down Ennis knows the difference between denial and some of the basic aspects of their relationship.

I still think it's particularly disturbing that he'd choose to talk about killing Jack given his suspicions about his father.  But, I absolutely don't believe that Ennis would ever hurt Jack.  No way.  The fact that Jack also doesn't flinch, even slightly, also shows that this doesn't really scare him either.  In fact, he pushes Ennis further with the discussion after this *empty* threat.

[Shakesthecoffecan]

Here is the haiku I wrote inspired by the Earl flashback:

Mouth gaping, blood red
Staining desert sage gully
Love's terrible price.

This is really nice, I just recently have been reintroduced to this form of poetry.

I think the scene with Earl's body is important in relation to the slaughtered sheep Ennis finds on his return after his first night with Jack, it is like an omen, a reminder of consequences in his world.

[starboardlight]

Here is the haiku I wrote inspired by the Earl flashback:

Mouth gaping, blood red
Staining desert sage gully
Love's terrible price.

it's so beautifully vivid and heartbreaking.

[serious crayons]

I do think that Ennis probably carries a lynch mob around in his head, but I disagree with the idea that he alligns himself with them.  I think it's the opposite.   I think he monitors his behavior, checks himself when gazing at Jack, and especially censors his speech (or performaitively says "I ain't no queer") out of fear that the lynch mob is constantly after him.  In the book, while he and Jack are in the motel he says that if his dad was alive and saw them in bed together his could clearly imagine his dad taking that tire iron to them both.  I think that dead and mutilated sheep set off all sorts of fears in Ennis's mind that he too is now one of the potential "sacrificial lambs".  It's important that this vision of death by predator loss comes the morning after Ennis lost his virginity. 

Amanda, this is getting ridiculous but, as is *almost* always the case, I agree with everything you say here. Especially the part about Ennis fearing the lynch mob coming after him, not aligning himself with them. (I'm sure there are some people who do both, but Ennis seems like someone who'd rather avoid the subject altogether.)

Oh, and I also really agree with this: I think he's truly beginning to think of himself as gay.  I so agree; the way he thinks about it, in my view, is a complex mix of denial and self-awareness. I don't agree when some people argue that it's only after Jack dies that he realizes he's gay (or that he loved Jack). I think he knows those things all along, and that knowledge somehow lives side-by-side with his denial and homophobia. He has everything so carefully compartmentalized he's able to sort of get along for a while, despite the contradictions: he can love seeing Jack when they're together, miss him when they're not, etc. -- even though at the same time he's constantly paranoid and the whole relationship scares him. He says "Jack, I can't stand it no more" when it becomes too hard to live with all that cognitive dissonance.

The only tiny thing I semi-disagree with is this:
But here, I think Ennis is worried that people can tell he's gay by looking at him somehow.

I bet knowing that his ex-wife, who knows he's gay and is obviously bitter, is married to the town grocer might also be a factor.

[TJ]

I don't have a copy of the published in a book screenplay, either in a computer file or in a real book; but, I do have a copy of the text of the Brokeback Mountain copyrighted by Dead Line, Ltd. in 1997. It is the same as in the paperback book which I purchased.

The movie does not show the mutilated body of Earl in an irrigation ditch, it is shown in a rocky ravine in the mountians. While one only sees the bloodied body of the man with his jeans pulled down, one cannot plainly see the crotch in detail.

While Ennis never knew for sure that his father used his own tool, aka "the tire iron," to kill Earl, he believes that his father actually was involved in Earl's death.

Ennis even states in the motel room in 1967 "Dad made sure I seen it. Took me to see it. Me and K.E. Dad laughed about it. Hell, for all I know he done the job. If he was alive and was to put his head in that door right now you bet he'd go get his tire iron. Two guys livin together? No. All I can see is we get together once in a while way the hell out in the back a nowhere -- "

Here are some more quotes from Ennis in the book.

 You and me can't hardly be decent together if what happened back there" -- he jerked his head in the direction of the apartment -- "grabs on us like that. We do that in the wrong place we'll be dead. There's no reins on this one. It scares the piss out a me."

"I goddamn hate it that you're goin a drive away in the mornin and I'm goin back to work. But if you can't fix it you got a stand it," he said. "Shit. I been lookin at people on the street. This happen a other people? What the hell do they do?"

When it comes to a person having physiological sexual attaction feelings directed another human being, Ennis is right when he says, "There's no reins on this one." That's because one has absolutely no control over toward whom one experiences a below the belt physiological sexual attraction when one is in close vicinity with another person and it happens.

[Brown Eyes]

I'm bumping this because some of the topics in the Double Meanings thead are beginning to overlap with discussions here.