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Flashbacks and Dozy Embraces

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RouxB:
I had a late night DVD mini-viewing last night and woke this mornig with a temperature-a Brokeback fever relapse. Made it to the gym but the movie and Jack and Ennis have been in the forefront of my conscious, and unconscious, for the last 8 hours-I just can't get them out of my mind-I tripped over my Step in class this morning cuz I wasn't paying attention.

 I've been thinking about the flashbacks and the dozy embrace-a scene that I love so much it's almost impossible to watch sometimes. It occured to me last night, or this moring, that Annie Proulx uses those flashbacks to define the basic characters Ennis and Jack. Ennis's flashback about fear and Jack's about love (I may have had this thought before but I guess I lost it somewhere).

henrypie:
I like it, Roux.
Also, for whatever it's worth or whatever thesis it supports, note that in at least one published version of the story, the entire story is Ennis's flashback.

RouxB:
Ohhhh, I think that concept traveled through my consciousness once. Are you saying the entire Brokeback Mountain story is told from the perspective of Ennis (please say yes)?

Jeff Wrangler:
Good insight about the use of flashbacks, RouxB!

I can't speak for Sarah, but, yes, I think you could say the whole story is kind of an Ennis flashback, in its "revised" version with the italicized prologue. It starts with Ennis "suffused with happiness" (what a wonderful phrase!) because he has been dreaming about Jack. Then it goes into their story, and at the end it comes back to Ennis dreaming of Jack.

RouxB:
Isn't it strange when a random obsevation from someone can change your life? I am embracing the concept that the entire story is from Ennis's perspective. This, for me, goes hand-in-hand with Annie Proulx comments about stories not being finished until the reader reads and intepretes it based on his or her own life experiences and beliefs. I'm thinking that one of the reasons I have a hard time letting go of the movie and the story-perhaps many of us-is because I haven't "finished" it-and I am a person who needs closure. The Ennis flashback interpretation allows me to finish the story based on my experiences and my needs. Hmmmm...

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