Our BetterMost Community > Chez Tremblay
Why did Ennis send the divorce-postcard?
nakymaton:
I've found sending and receiving letters and postcards to be incredibly comforting. I've never been much in the habit of using the phone. Before e-mail, I kept in touch with everyone -- best friends, parents, long-distance boyfriends -- by letter. So I can see why Ennis would turn to his normal way of communicating with Jack.
Penthesilea:
I'm in a hurry now and can't answer like I want to.
You people give me a lot of input. Thanks for that. I'll think about it and answer later this evening or tomorrow.
Just a short note to nakymaton:
Your post makes perfect sense to me.
serious crayons:
Nakymaton's theory that he might have just mentioned it in passing, in a card about their next fishin trip, makes sense. I don't see it as cruel, even unwittingly so, especially if that's how it happened. And he couldn't have predicted that Jack would drop everything and rush up there without notice (though I guess he couldn't call, since Ennis apparently didn't have a phone).
My heart always sinks when I watch this scene. It marks a turning point, the total loss of hope. Somehow when I watch the movie I always think at some irrational level that things might end differently for them this time, but after this scene I know they won't. The truck, the crow, the disappointment in Jack's face, the guilt in Ennis' -- it is all so, so bleak. When seeing it in the theater, I always wished I could walk our right before this scene. Course I never did.
serious crayons:
Oh and Nakymaton, your theory that people actually MIGHT wonder about the Texas-plated truck in Ennis' driveway does make some sense. But couldn't Jack just be Ennis' fishing buddy? After all, he apparently isn't afraid to send or receive postcards to/from Jack at the small-town post office.
The only thing I like about that scene (OK, OK, I like it from an artistic standpoint, just not an emotional one) is how clearly pleased Ennis is at first to see Jack, and how long they embrace, even though the girls are right there. It's one of the little signs that, however much Ennis' issues might constrain his actions, they don't constrain his feelings for Jack.
nakymaton:
I don't know why Ennis isn't paranoid about people reading the postcards. I mean, I'm willing to bet that the people handling the mail did read them, before tucking them into the bundle of catalogs and stuff. (And Alma certainly read them.) Probably a good thing that they were high school drop-outs, and not writing love poems or anything.
It may be that writing, somehow, seems a step more impersonal and therefore more safe? My perspective is this: I'm incredibly introverted in person, but for some odd reason have always been more willing to express myself in writing. Even on things like the internet, where millions of people could read stuff if they wanted to. Somehow writing seems more private than speaking to someone in person, even out in the middle of nowhere.
Also, you know, Ennis and Alma may have been the subject of gossip ever since Alma filed for divorce. And once the divorce went through, everybody with a single sister or cousin may have been trying to set Ennis up for a new marriage. (Or they may have been nosing into Ennis's personal life to be friendly, knowing that he was all alone.) And any attention like that might have made Ennis all the more paranoid that everyone would immediately know who and what Jack was.
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