Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum

what possessed Jack to take that shirt in the first place?

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opinionista:

--- Quote ---Just seeing those shirts in his closet over the years (and being unable to throw them out) might have been the reason Jack finally got up the nerve to contact Ennis again.
--- End quote ---

I think Jack sort of swore to himself he was going to find Ennis again one way or another. He goes back to Aguirre a year afterwards pretending to look for work when he was actually looking for Ennis. And I bet at the rodeos and later at his job as a farm machinery salesman, he didn't hesistate to ask, especially among the folks from Wyoming, if someone knew Ennis del Mar by a chance.

However, I think it's odd they don't exchange addresses when they part ways. But I guess Ennis wanted to avoid any temptation, and Jack didn't want to be punched in the face again.

nakymaton:

--- Quote from: opinionista on May 28, 2006, 03:34:18 pm ---But I guess Ennis wanted to avoid any temptation

--- End quote ---

It's really telling that the camera focuses on Ennis (and we first hear his voice clearly) in the "...lead us not into temptation..." part of the Lord's Prayer, isn't it?

Interesting answers, everyone. I can't decide whether Jack thought he would never see Ennis again after the punch, or whether he still held out hope that Ennis would come back the next summer (until their conversation by the truck? until Ennis wasn't at Aguirre's trailer the next summer?). Was Jack taking the shirt to remember Ennis by forever (like keeping the clothing of a deceased love one... like the way Ennis keeps the shirts in the end), or was he taking the shirt to keep the memories fresh through the winter (like Eddy's boyfriend, maybe?), or as a sort of token of unspoken commitment (which, I guess, was what my boyfriend and I were doing with our exchanged clothing... certainly when we returned them, we were saying the relationship was over for good)?

Interesting point about Jack asking about Ennis, opinionista. I've wondered how Jack knew to send that postcard to Riverton.

(And Mikaela, I think you're right, that asking for a shirt would have forced Ennis to admit too much to himself. I guess the expression "touchy-feely" doesn't quite work in that context, because the touching and feeling were actually the things that Ennis was comfortable doing. But all the symbolic stuff, from saying "I love you" out loud to openly exchanging clothing... yeah, that's not the Ennis I see on the screen. And I guess I asked because I, personally, would have left with nothing rather than take a shirt. But then my personality is more like Ennis than Jack.)

Another question: when do you all think that Jack layered Ennis's shirt inside his own? Right away, up there on the mountain? Some time during that winter in Lightning Flat? After the reunion? After one of the other "fishing trips"?

opinionista:

--- Quote ---Interesting point about Jack asking about Ennis, opinionista. I've wondered how Jack knew to send that postcard to Riverton.
--- End quote ---

Well, in the postcard Jack writes:

"Friend, this letter is a long time over due. Hope you get it. Heard you was in Riverton. I'm coming thru on the 24th, thought I'd stop and buy you a beer. Drop me a line if you can, say if your there". (This is from the short story).

So I reckon, he heard Ennis was in Riverton because he asked around. Why would anyone mention Ennis out of the blue when he wasn't famous, or rich or anything? Just a ranch hand, like many others.


--- Quote ---Another question: when do you all think that Jack layered Ennis's shirt inside his own? Right away, up there on the mountain? Some time during that winter in Lightning Flat? After the reunion? After one of the other "fishing trips"?
--- End quote ---

I picture Jack layering Ennis's shirt inside his the very same day he was back in Lightning Flat. I started to write a fan fiction about it, but I haven't finished it and don't think I will. I'm a writer but I write in Spanish, I don't think my English is good enough for that.

Mikaela:

--- Quote ---And I bet at the rodeos and later at his job as a farm machinery salesman, he didn't hesistate to ask, especially among the folks from Wyoming, if someone knew Ennis del Mar by a chance.
--- End quote ---

I really think this explanation makes a lot of sense.  :) I've been wondering about how Jack happened to "hear" that Ennis was in Riverton, too.

When they parted ways in 1963, I suppose the only address Ennis would have had to give out would be his married brother's.....sounds like that from his story on how he ended up herding sheep on the mountain,  And after he and Alma got married, they had moved a couple of times already between "lonesome old ranches" before they ended up above the laundromat. Ennis can't have been easy to track down.

Jack must have been so elated when he actually, eventually, got a lead on Ennis's whereabouts!



Mel, totally OT but still; - I though touchy-feely was just another way of saying "emotional" - that those were directly interchangable expressions? I take it it's not, then - that it's actually used in the literal sense? Seems BBM is about to improve my english knowledge once more! :)

nakymaton:

--- Quote from: Mikaela on May 28, 2006, 04:27:26 pm ---Mel, totally OT but still; - I though touchy-feely was just another way of saying "emotional" - that those were directly interchangable expressions? I take it it's not, then - that it's actually used in the literal sense? Seems BBM is about to improve my english knowledge once more! :)

--- End quote ---

No, you're right, it is used just to mean "emotional," usually in a negative sense. But I guess you could read it literally, as well -- it kind of evokes an image of a caress, I guess.

opinionista -- yeah, I guess that's the only way that Jack could have heard that Ennis was in Riverton. I guess I'm surprised that even guys on the rodeo circuit would have known Ennis -- he's such a quiet, try-to-fade-into-the-background kind of guy. (And would Ennis have gone anywhere near a rodeo during those four years? I'd imagine him getting a bad case of the shakes just seeing a flyer advertising one -- that Ennis would lie awake wondering if Jack was going to be there and trying not to think about him, and that Ennis would avoid even looking at the flyers in fear that somebody would know, and I'd better stop because I'm getting a little too close to fanfic myself here.) I guess that there might have been guys who worked on a ranch in the area, met Ennis, and then joined the rodeo circuit.

It's a big world. Jack's lucky that he ever managed to track Ennis down, I guess.

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