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

Jack and Alma Jr.- Parallels?

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nakymaton:

--- Quote from: JakeTwist on December 31, 2006, 03:53:14 pm ---I think this is based on degree of willingness to forgive.  You guys will forgive Ennis for way more than I will.

--- End quote ---

Well, some of us have to forgive Ennis if we're ever going to forgive our own Inner Ennis.


--- Quote ---personally do not feel that he gets a blanket Get Out Of Jail Free Card for the way he treated JAck, Alma Jr, and do not forget his girlfriend of five years Cassie!!!
--- End quote ---

I would add Alma to that list. :( A different person in a different world might have broken off the marriage before it happened, and a jilted-but-young Alma would probably have gotten over it eventually.

I don't think it's just the Earl incident that messed up Ennis. The Earl incident is a powerful image, but I think it was used in the story and the movie as a way of capturing an entire violently anti-gay culture. Presumably it wasn't just seeing Earl's body in the ditch that scarred Ennis... that one image just drives home the horror to the readers/viewers.

And... well, self-hatred and guilt really can paralyze people.

And Ennis's fears were reasonable, in many ways. Marge is right about family court... Alma wouldn't have given up custody of Alma Jr. easily, and courts tend to give custody to mothers anyway, and... it would have gotten ugly. And the way rumors spread in a small town? In many ways, Ennis was a realist (especially in contrast with Jack-the-dreamer), as well as being paralyzed by self-hatred.


--- Quote ---Ennis was right, he didn't have wings, did he? Had them torn off by his father. Then folded Jack's wings for him in the wild columbine, doing what his daddy taught him to do (that long, rather oblique speech in the story 'explaining' the punch). Ennis couldn't see a way to fly, soon enough, even though I try to believe he would have, given more time with Jack after their confrontation.
--- End quote ---

Fernly, this is beautiful. Sad, but beautiful.

Marge_Innavera:

--- Quote from: JakeTwist on December 31, 2006, 01:49:39 pm ---The topic I am discussing is why won't Ennis allow his beloved daughter to live with him?  that's it.  Ennis is a functioning person, he has a job, he goes to work, he is not a totally dysfunctional person.  Yes he has issues about being gay, self denial, etc etc.  I don't think that those problems are an excuse for refusing to live with Alma Jr. 
--- End quote ---

They aren't an excuse. They're the underlying reason.  Having a job and going to work doesn't necessarily mean that a person isn't disfunctional to varying degrees in human relationships. And reasons are not the same as excuses.


--- Quote ---that was a rhetorical question BTW, Marge, but you are entitled to your opinion.  Since you don't really know me, you don't really have an informed opinion about that.
--- End quote ---

I'm not sure what opinion you think I'm expressing. You asked a rhetorical question "am I thick?" and I answered that there were things you'd overlooked or were dismissing. You can put what interpretations you like on that.

Marge_Innavera:

--- Quote from: fernly on December 31, 2006, 02:39:27 pm ---Maybe another way that Jr. takes after Ennis...by the time she tells him about the wedding, seems like it's been planned for quite a while. I wonder if she putting off telling her dad, worried, (same as he was to tell Jack about August), expecting Ennis to say exactly what he did at first, that he couldn't.

But I've always thought that her brilliant smile, when Ennis says he will, is what Jack's smile would have looked like, if Ennis had said yes to him.
--- End quote ---

One of my reactions the first time I ever saw that scene was a bit of sadness at her having to invite her own father to her wedding. I never invited my Dad and he would have been astounded if I had. And something about her tone of voice suggests that he's kept that barrier up between himself and even the people closest to him consistently enough that she doesn't exactly expect an affirmative answer.

Do you think her invitation included giving her away? She mentioned her stepfather catering the reception but nothing about that part of it.

Marge_Innavera:

--- Quote from: nakymaton on December 31, 2006, 02:53:20 pm ---It took Jack's death to push him towards any sort of change, even something as little as going to his beloved daughter's wedding. Ennis is a mess. It's not a good way to be, but I find it understandable, if tragic.
--- End quote ---

And deciding to be at the wedding was no small decision. You can bet he'd managed to avoid any contact with Alma after that Thanksgiving incident, and now he'll have to be sitting in the front pew next to her! Even if they don't socialize much, they're going to have to interact some as the parents of the bride, and at this point Ennis isn't just estranged from his ex-wife, he realizes that she knows he's gay. For that matter, Monroe probably does too - wouldn't he have wanted an explanation as to why she's screaming and apparently throwing plates as Ennis storms out? Chances are overwheliming neither of them will ever mention that to him for for somebody like Ennis it would be an excruciating kind of public exposure and his deciding to be there indicates a willingness to move outside that fear-bounded comfort zone. It's one of the few rays of hope at the end.

welliwont:


--- Quote from: Marge_Innavera on December 31, 2006, 05:03:00 pm ---
I'm not sure what opinion you think I'm expressing. You asked a rhetorical question "am I thick?" and I answered that there were things you'd overlooked or were dismissing. You can put what interpretations you like on that.


--- End quote ---

Well Marge, I guess I will tell you if you did not figure it out yourself.  I was referring to the first reply that you posted, the one that came to my e-mail inbox.   Y'see Marge, when you post a post, the people who have previously posted on the thread will get future posts to the same thread sent directly to their inbox.  Unless they disable the feature after they post.  So you see, your first post went to my in-box, and I was able to read your initial reply.  Then you edited it on the thread.  That was the post I was commenting on.

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