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How Did Jack Die?
Marge_Innavera:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on August 25, 2012, 09:56:19 am --- There's another hint to the reality of Jack's demise...his origins in the town of Lightning Flat!
--- End quote ---
As we all discovered when we looked for Lightning Flat on a map, it's in a very isolated part of the US state with the lowest population density. And according to what history I've seen of the town, Lightning Flat was almost a ghost town in the early-mid 1940s when Jack was born, and very little left of it when he came of age. It contributes to the theme of both men leading very isolated lives, although Jack's life doesn't appear that way to outsiders.
Penthesilea:
After six+ years, my opinion hasn't changed. Of course we can't know for certain, that's how the story is meant to be. We're left with some open space, just like Ennis is.
However, I've always thought Jack died in an accident with the tire rim. My reasoning is pretty much the same as Katherine's (no surprise here :laugh:).
Jack dies in an accident, far away from Ennis, who doesn't even know about it for months (oh my, the thought is so cruel, still). The story simply makes more sense that way. Had Jack died in a gay-bashing, then Ennis would have been right all along to deny them the sweet life. But if Jack dies in a freak accident, Ennis denying them the sweet life is completely and utterly in vein.
You can't get any more tragic. Ennis lets himself be guided by his (understandable and justified) fear, and it doesn't do him or Jack any good. His crippling fear, bordering on paranoia, leads him (both, really) to a lonesome, sad existence, but doesn't buy them safety in exchange.
Penthesilea:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on August 24, 2012, 02:31:21 pm ---It's late August, the time when Jack died under mysterious circumstances.
--- End quote ---
Why do you think Jack died in August, even in late August?
I rather think it was June/July.
Ennis didn't know about it for months - plural, meaning minimum two. If Jack died in late August - then you'd have to add at least two months - making it end of October before Ennis gets the postcard back, stamped deceased.
I think that's too close to the proposed Nov 7th gathering (the camping trip that never was :'().
What if one of them couldn't come on the proposed date? They had to consider the possibility of a change in date when communicating via postcards, give it enough time to write back and forth. Thus I think Ennis wrote the postcard with plenty time for Jack to reply and even write a second one, confirming a different date (say, if Jack had replied "Can't make it before the 11th" or something like that).
In the story, Ennis' postcard said "that November still looked like the first chance". He wouldn't say this if he wrote the card at a time on October.
Front-Ranger:
--- Quote from: Penthesilea on August 25, 2012, 03:49:58 pm ---Why do you think Jack died in August, even in late August?
I rather think it was June/July.
--- End quote ---
I guess I thought it was late August because chowhound said so in the thread "An Accurate Timeline of BBM--let's figure it out together!" I got interested in that thread when I was researching the August 13th banner that I did. It makes sense if Jack was conceptualized as a continuation of the harvest god myth, where the barley is harvested in August to make the whiskey or beer.
Keep in mind that the US Postal System has nothing close to the efficiency that the German system undoubtedly has. And back then it was even worse. Ennis may have sent the postcard in September or October but didn't get it back until close to November.
Marina:
I have to agree that, and also after having read the story, that Ennis thought Jack died by an attack, but he may have died just the way Lureen described. The way the scene cuts to Jack being beaten as if in Ennis' mind as Lureen tells him what happened. Her answer does sound a bit rehearsed, but that may be from repeating the account to others. Yes, homophobia was and is out there, but the great tragedy is that Ennis had internalized it and believed it himself. His question to Jack "do the people on the pavement know" reminds me of almost like when a child has done something he or she feels is "wrong", and keeps it to himself and doesn't tell, but then feels guilty and thinks everybody "knows". He certainly was damaged by what he was made to witness as a child. Jack, of course, while not unsympathetic, seems to lose patience with that kind of thinking.
I think after hearing Ennis' voice over the telephone, it does possibly bring to Lureen an awareness that she probably didn't want to face consciously.
Also "Jack in the Green" is who I thought of - their times together up on Brokeback in summertime and in the mountains in Ennis' youth - also a dying-and-rebirth figure.
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