Our BetterMost Community > Chez Tremblay
If you were Alma............
TJ:
delalluvia, I like your responses here.
In the book, when Ennis and Alma moved with their children to Riverton and stayed in the apartment over the laundry, Ennis worked 7 days a week. See the quote below from the book:
"Ennis got on the highway crew, tolerating it but working weekends at the Rafter B in exchange for keeping his horses out there. The second girl was born and Alma wanted to stay in town near the clinic because the child had an asthmatic wheeze.
"Ennis, please, no more damn lonesome ranches for us," she said, sitting on his lap, wrapping her thin, freckled arms around him. "Let's get a place here in town?"
But, by the time that Jack showed up in 1967, they were still in the very same small apartment. They still had not moved to a place of their own, which IMO would have been a house with a yard.
I don't consider Ennis to be a lazy person and in the book, he was working when Alma got the job as a grocery store clerk because of all the bills they had which were probably connected with the childrens' health problems and they could not survive just on what Ennis was making.
But, I do know that some people who cannot hold a job very long have self-esteem problems. But, if you read about how ranch work was available on a limited basis for people with little or no job skills in Wyoming in the 1960s, you (meaning anybody) would understand their finacial situation.
starboardlight:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on May 07, 2006, 12:08:02 pm ---I agree, this is also why I think the movie makers made sure Movie Alma saw the two actually making out instead of Book Alma simply seeing Ennis' back while they tusseled on the stoop which could account for her staying with Ennis - because she didn't know what was she was seeing - and finally leaving him because he was a crap provider and companion.
This is also why I don't agree when people say Junior 'knew' what her father was.
--- End quote ---
i agree here, del. the kitchen confrontation made more sense in the short story. In the story, she might have suspected but tying the note to his fishing line would have been her way of confirming her suspicion. in the movie, she knew why Ennis went up to the mountain with Jack. She knew it wasn't about fishing, so there would have no reason to tie the note.
JennyC:
--- Quote from: starboardlight on May 08, 2006, 02:08:43 am ---i agree here, del. the kitchen confrontation made more sense in the short story. In the story, she might have suspected but tying the note to his fishing line would have been her way of confirming her suspicion. in the movie, she knew why Ennis went up to the mountain with Jack. She knew it wasn't about fishing, so there would have no reason to tie the note.
--- End quote ---
Excellent point, star and Del. I was wondering the difference between the short story and the film on this particular scene. You made it very clear to me now.
TJ:
--- Quote from: starboardlight on May 08, 2006, 02:08:43 am ---i agree here, del. the kitchen confrontation made more sense in the short story. In the story, she might have suspected but tying the note to his fishing line would have been her way of confirming her suspicion. in the movie, she knew why Ennis went up to the mountain with Jack. She knew it wasn't about fishing, so there would have no reason to tie the note.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: JennyC on May 08, 2006, 01:30:27 pm ---Excellent point, star and Del. I was wondering the difference between the short story and the film on this particular scene. You made it very clear to me now.
--- End quote ---
I don't think Alma became suspicious until after Ennis had claimed more than once that they had eaten all of the trout that he and Jack supposedly caught and that' why none were brought home for her and the kids, who liked fish, to eat. Before Alma tied the note on the end of the fishing line, Ennis had been taking the 5 year old creel case with him every time he went "fishing." The contents in it were still "brand-new" when she put the note in it and the note had not even gotten damp when he came back from the trip.
IMO, I just think that Alma didn't just believe that the guys did not even fish; she also believed they didn't go up to camp in the mountains either. That's why I think she accused him (and Jack) of committing heterosexual adultery with women. She could also have been naive enough to not understand why the type of sex Ennis liked "didn't make too many babies." (A woman can only get pregnant if some spilled semen ends up in the right location. Some women have gotten pregnant without actual vaginal intercourse.)
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: latjoreme on May 06, 2006, 11:35:03 pm ---But then what is the point, from a storytelling perspective, of showing her hiding [the postcard]? Did she hide others, perhaps with more crucial info? And if not, why not? Looks like Alma is the one who usually gets the mail. So does she interfere or doesn't she?!
--- End quote ---
I'd guess she doesn't. The story doesn't really give us anything on their communications before their fishing trips. Maybe the hiding the postcard scene was the movie's equivalent of the story's point that she resented Ennis taking these fishing trips with Jack while he never took her and the girls anywhere.
Maybe she doesn't interfere because she's afraid of what Ennis might do if he finds out--and surely he would find out, eventually. If she didn't realize her husband was capable of violence before the Fourth of July, 1966, she sure knew it after that date!
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