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Alma? It ain't her fault. - Whose fault is it?

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tiawahcowboy:
From the 1967 Reunion at in the motel room in Riverton


--- Quote ---"I doubt there's nothin now we can do," said Ennis. "What I'm sayin, Jack, I built a life up in them years. Love my little girls. Alma? It ain't her fault. You got your baby and wife, that place in Texas. You and me can't hardly be decent together if what happened back there" -- he jerked his head in the direction of the apartment -- "grabs on us like that. We do that in the wrong place we'll be dead. There's no reins on this one. It scares the piss out a me."
--- End quote ---


Later, notice what is added in the narrative:


--- Quote ---(Ennis says) Two guys livin together? No. All I can see is we get together once in a while way the hell out in the back a nowhere -- "
   "How much is once in a while?" said Jack. "Once in a while ever four fuckin years?"
   "No," said Ennis, forbearing to ask whose fault that was. "I goddamn hate it that you're goin a drive away in the mornin and I'm goin back to work. But if you can't fix it you got a stand it," he said. "Shit. I been lookin at people on the street. This happen a other people? What the hell do they do?"
--- End quote ---


Whose fault is it that Ennis is married to Alma? Why did he marry her in the first place? This has to be an argument from silence because we do not know in what circumstance they met and why they got married.

Alma certainly was not pregnant; she didn't get with child until January 1964,

slayers_creek_oth:
I think when Ennis says that it ain't Alma's fault he is referring to Jacks and Ennis' relationship...not his marriage...

He's saying that the complications between Jack and Ennis and their sticky situation isn't Alma's fault...its not her fault that Jack and Ennis are in love in other words...

At least thats how I saw it...

tiawahcowboy:
If Ennis had answered his question aloud to Jack, what do you think he would have said.

I really don't think that he was in love with her in the first place. Alma did have a whiney attitude both in the book and in the movie. She was miserable most of the time. She might have come from a family where she had been miserable, too.

I am not saying that Ennis did not love Alma before they got married. But, I have met quite a few (later out-of-the-closet gay) guys who married women or girls legally old enough to be married and they just loved them as friends. They did have some fun times with them. And, like Ennis with Alma in the bedroom, their married sex lives were miserable. If they had children, that was more by coincidence rather than family planning; because the guys just had sex often enough.

nakymaton:

--- Quote ---   "How much is once in a while?" said Jack. "Once in a while ever four fuckin years?"
   "No," said Ennis, forbearing to ask whose fault that was.
--- End quote ---

I read this part of the story as referring to the amount of time it took for Ennis and Jack to see one another again. It sounded to me as though  in his head, Ennis is blaming Jack for taking four years to look Ennis up again. (Whether Ennis is being fair about blaming Jack is another question, I think... but it sounds to me as though both Jack and Ennis are a bit sore about the amount of time they spent apart before the reunion.)

And when Ennis says it ain't Alma's fault, I think he's referring to the whole messy situation: not just Ennis and Jack's relationship, not just Ennis's marriage, but the whole messy, complicated situation. Two marriages, three kids, a desperate fear of what might happen to two men living together...

slayers_creek_oth:

--- Quote from: nakymaton on June 01, 2006, 12:42:46 pm ---I read this part of the story as referring to the amount of time it took for Ennis and Jack to see one another again.
--- End quote ---

Thats kind of how I saw it...it had nothing to do with the marriage but the complications between Jack and Ennis i.e. the amount of time until they could see one another...

Thanks...

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