Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
"I figured you were sore from that punch"
dly64:
--- Quote from: stevenedel on July 01, 2006, 06:19:53 am ---I agree with that. Ennis's mood darkens from the very moment Jack tells him they will be going down a month early. Ennis was always the practical and dutiful one, but now he lets Jack do all the packing while he just mopes around. On BBM he has found a happiness he's never known before (and will, unfortunately, never know again :'(). By the time they have to leave BBM, he knows that. I think Proulx likened Ennis to a wound-up spring; you might say BBM unwound him, and when they have to go, he is winding up again. So when Jack is hurting him, he hurts him back. But in the end I think his anger has very little to do with Jack at all, or with Jack inadvertently hitting his nose - it's just his own confusion and inability to cope that he projects outward.
I must say that though, thankfully, I'm not the hitting type, I know from personal experience how intense love, once thwarted, can turn into intense anger. If circumstances force you to part from someone you love, you're still stuck with all those feelings that have to go somewhere. One defense mechanism is to turn them into their opposite. I believe psychoanalysts call this reaction-formation.
--- End quote ---
I like what you are saying here in regards to Ennis being "unwound" and then "rewound". I think that you are dead on regarding the anger issue. However, I think Ennis' punch is one of impulse .... Maybe the right word is not anger. He is outwardly showing anger, but internally his world is spiraling and he doesn't know how to handle all of his feelings. IMO, Ennis understands how to express one emotion ... that is anger. If he resorts to anger, he can escape dealing with the truth.
ruthlesslyunsentimental:
--- Quote from: dly64 on July 01, 2006, 05:25:58 pm --- Ennis understands how to express one emotion ... that is anger. If he resorts to anger, he can escape dealing with the truth.
--- End quote ---
Sure enough.
He's just a bundle of raw energy, isn't he?
Midnight24:
--- Quote from: ruthlesslyunsentimental on July 01, 2006, 05:44:22 pm ---Sure enough.
He's just a bundle of raw energy, isn't he?
--- End quote ---
I agree...yeah I guess in some ways he deals with things in anger. A bundle of raw energy indeed.
mvansand76:
I love this discussion... I love ALL the discussions on here! :P ;D
What I find striking about the punch is that Ennis lets himself be comforted by Jack UNTIL Jack lays his hand on his face in such a way that only a lover will do, soothing, that's EXACTLY the moment when Ennis hits him. Did anybody else notice that? That's exactly what Ennis couldn't take, to feel that caress, because he knew it would be gone in a matter of hours.
stevenedel:
--- Quote from: mvansand76 on July 04, 2006, 07:15:21 am ---I love this discussion... I love ALL the discussions on here! :P ;D
What I find striking about the punch is that Ennis lets himself be comforted by Jack UNTIL Jack lays his hand on his face in such a way that only a lover will do, soothing, that's EXACTLY the moment when Ennis hits him. Did anybody else notice that? That's exactly what Ennis couldn't take, to feel that caress, because he knew it would be gone in a matter of hours.
--- End quote ---
I think it also shows that while Jack was never truly fighting, Ennis was. So while for Jack it is possible to instantlly resume the tender, caring role when he accidently hits Ennis harder than intended, Ennis can only continue fighting. His anger is real and comes from deep within. I always see that punch as the first, violent expression of the accusation he makes twenty years on: "It's because of you I am like this". He's externalizing his inner conflict.
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