Our BetterMost Community > Chez Tremblay
If you were Alma............
TJ:
Here's what is in the book in relation to the thankgiving scene.
--- Quote ---Ennis went back to ranch work, hired on here and there, not getting much ahead but glad enough to be around stock again, free to drop things, quit if he had to, and go into the mountains at short notice. He had no serious hard feelings, just a vague sense of getting shortchanged, and showed it was all right by taking Thanksgiving dinner with Alma and her grocer and the kids, sitting between his girls and talking horses to them, telling jokes, trying not to be a sad daddy.
--- End quote ---
Annie Proulx's Ennis was not exactly happy when he had that dinner at Alma's and the grocer's.
Jeff Wrangler:
I know this is straying OT on a thread about Alma, but I've never been really sure I understood what Annie Proulx means by "Ennis went back to ranch work"--emphasis on the "went back."
Does this mean he wasn't doing ranch work--except part time on weekends in order to keep his horses--until after Alma divorced him, and he felt free to go back to the kind of work he loved? (And I've always believed that Ennis genuinely did love ranch work.)
In describing the divorce, I seem to remember that AP also says one of the things Alma objects to is Ennis's "yearning" for low-paid ranch work.
So what was he doing all those years after they moved into that apartment in Riverton? Was he on the county road crew--and didn't go back to cowboying until after Alma dumped him? Or was he doing ranch work? Does "Ennis went back to ranch work" mean he just "went back" to doing what he had been doing?
TJ:
In the movie, Ennis worked for the state highway department BEFORE they all moved to Riverton.
But, it was not that way in the book.
--- Quote --- When the Hi-Top folded they moved to a small apartment in Riverton up over a laundry. 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?"
"I guess," said Ennis, slipping his hand up her blouse sleeve and stirring the silky armpit hair, then easing her down, fingers moving up her ribs to the jelly breast, over the round belly and knee and up into the wet gap all the way to the north pole or the equator depending which way you thought you were sailing, working at it until she shuddered and bucked against his hand and he rolled her over, did quickly what she hated. They stayed in the little apartment which he favored because it could be left at any time.
--- End quote ---
Ennis' (layman's version) psychological profile does fit that of a person who has a self-esteem problem which can be related to a learning disability (he was "farsighted enough to dislike reading anything except Hamley's saddle catalog") and even one's sexual orientation.
He did actually like to work with horses on a ranch and that his why he owned more than one horse to use for work and pleasure.
While Ennis did work hard and he was not lazy, he was not a stable person at all. It also might have had to do with the fact that he really was not a people person and did not like to be around very many people at one time. His uneasiness around other people could have been related to the traumatic experience in seeing the body of Earl when he was around 9 years old.
kirkmusic:
"Once burned" is only one example of Ennis trying to blame somebody else for his shortcomings. He does it in the coffee shop scene with Cassie. "Looks like I got the message, in any case." I think there was one more example somewhere but I can't recall at the moment. It's something he needs to work on if he doesn't want people reading him the riot act now and then as a result.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: kirkmusic on May 13, 2006, 04:16:51 am --- It's something he needs to work on if he doesn't want people reading him the riot act now and then as a result.
--- End quote ---
LOL, Kirk. It's hard to imagine Ennis "working on" anything like that. However, rude as "once burned" might have been, I don't think the divorce is entirely the result of Ennis' shortcomings. He is completely to blame in the relationship with Cassie, though, especially for breaking it off so insensitively. You know, I've never thought that line made total sense. "Looks like I got the message" -- and yet it's Cassie who has taken action and is dating someone else.
One more thing in regard to an earlier question. I do think it's the "Jack Nasty" remark that really sets Ennis off -- his face changes and becomes much more enraged at that very moment. However, it's impossible to tell whether it's because of the insult or because of the implications or both.
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