If you were Alma............

[TJ]

delalluvia, I like your responses here.

In the book, when Ennis and Alma moved with their children to Riverton and stayed in the apartment over the laundry, Ennis worked 7 days a week. See the quote below from the book:

"Ennis got on the highway crew, tolerating it but working weekends at the Rafter B in exchange for keeping his horses out there. The second girl was born and Alma wanted to stay in town near the clinic because the child had an asthmatic wheeze.
   "Ennis, please, no more damn lonesome ranches for us," she said, sitting on his lap, wrapping her thin, freckled arms around him. "Let's get a place here in town?"

But, by the time that Jack showed up in 1967, they were still in the very same small apartment. They still had not moved to a place of their own, which IMO would have been a house with a yard.

I don't consider Ennis to be a lazy person and in the book, he was working when Alma got the job as a grocery store clerk because of all the bills they had which were probably connected with the childrens' health problems and they could not survive just on what Ennis was making.

But, I do know that some people who cannot hold a job very long have self-esteem problems. But, if you read about how ranch work was available on a limited basis for people with little or no job skills in Wyoming in the 1960s, you (meaning anybody) would understand their finacial situation.

[starboardlight]

I agree, this is also why I think the movie makers made sure Movie Alma saw the two actually making out instead of Book Alma simply seeing Ennis' back while they tusseled on the stoop which could account for her staying with Ennis - because she didn't know what was she was seeing - and finally leaving him because he was a crap provider and companion.

This is also why I don't agree when people say Junior 'knew' what her father was.

i agree here, del. the kitchen confrontation made more sense in the short story. In the story, she might have suspected but tying the note to his fishing line would have been her way of confirming her suspicion. in the movie, she knew why Ennis went up to the mountain with Jack. She knew it wasn't about fishing, so there would have no reason to tie the note.

[JennyC]

i agree here, del. the kitchen confrontation made more sense in the short story. In the story, she might have suspected but tying the note to his fishing line would have been her way of confirming her suspicion. in the movie, she knew why Ennis went up to the mountain with Jack. She knew it wasn't about fishing, so there would have no reason to tie the note.

Excellent point, star and Del.  I was wondering the difference between the short story and the film on this particular scene.  You made it very clear to me now.

[TJ]

i agree here, del. the kitchen confrontation made more sense in the short story. In the story, she might have suspected but tying the note to his fishing line would have been her way of confirming her suspicion. in the movie, she knew why Ennis went up to the mountain with Jack. She knew it wasn't about fishing, so there would have no reason to tie the note.

Excellent point, star and Del.  I was wondering the difference between the short story and the film on this particular scene.  You made it very clear to me now.

I don't think Alma became suspicious until after Ennis had claimed more than once that they had eaten all of the trout that he and Jack supposedly caught and that' why none were brought home for her and the kids, who liked fish, to eat. Before Alma tied the note on the end of the fishing line, Ennis had been taking the 5 year old creel case with him every time he went "fishing." The contents in it were still "brand-new" when she put the note in it and the note had not even gotten damp when he came back from the trip.

IMO, I just think that Alma didn't just believe that the guys did not even fish; she also believed they didn't go up to camp in the mountains either. That's why I think she accused him (and Jack) of committing heterosexual adultery with women. She could also have been naive enough to not understand why the type of sex Ennis liked "didn't make too many babies." (A woman can only get pregnant if some spilled semen ends up in the right location. Some women have gotten pregnant without actual vaginal intercourse.)

[Jeff Wrangler]

But then what is the point, from a storytelling perspective, of showing her hiding [the postcard]? Did she hide others, perhaps with more crucial info? And if not, why not? Looks like Alma is the one who usually gets the mail. So does she interfere or doesn't she?!

I'd guess she doesn't. The story doesn't really give us anything on their communications before their fishing trips. Maybe the hiding the postcard scene was the movie's equivalent of the story's point that she resented Ennis taking these fishing trips with Jack while he never took her and the girls anywhere.

Maybe she doesn't interfere because she's afraid of what Ennis might do if he finds out--and surely he would find out, eventually. If she didn't realize her husband was capable of violence before the Fourth of July, 1966, she sure knew it after that date!

[j.U.d.E.]

With everything being said so far, I agree mostly. Back in 1967 in rural America (or anywhere else) it was hard for a woman like Alma to stand strong and getting a divorce. But I do think she got stronger with the years. She did after all, put her will through to go working, instead of staying home cooking for her family (the scene with the girls on the swing). And earlier in the film when Ennis drops of the girls at the place where Alma works, she does challenge (even though not very successfully) Ennis as to whose job is more important. It just took a while/few years, to get to the divorce.

And I think also, that, though Alma really loved Ennis, she might also have been scared of him. He had quite a temper and was basically double her size or at least weight..

To answer Victoria's question, now 2006 (back then I don't know) I wouldn't wait long or re-consider much. I wouldn't kick him    but I wouldn't give him endless number of chances..

My father was mostly out of work when me and my sister were toddlers. In 1972 my mother discoverd my father cheating on her. She left him and by 1974 they were divorced. But my mother was not in Alma's situation, though it was pretty tough for her still!

~ j U d E

[serious crayons]

And I think also, that, though Alma really loved Ennis, she might also have been scared of him. He had quite a temper and was basically double her size or at least weight..

Jude and Jeff, if one purpose of the 4th of July scene is to show that Alma has reason to fear Ennis' violence -- and it may well be -- it's lame. Beating up slop-bucket-mouthed bikers is pretty different from beating up your wife. My husband is non-violent, but say if he got in a fight with some guy in a bar, I can't imagine getting scared he would go after me next.

[j.U.d.E.]

Jude and Jeff, if one purpose of the 4th of July scene is to show that Alma has reason to fear Ennis' violence -- and it may well be -- it's lame. Beating up slop-bucket-mouthed bikers is pretty different from beating up your wife. My husband is non-violent, but say if he got in a fight with some guy in a bar, I can't imagine getting scared he would go after me next.

I was thinking of that exact scene too. Though I wasn't suggesting Ennis being a wife-beater, but there is one scene - just after the Jack Nasty bit - where Ennis does grab Alma. And before that - when he's having sex with Alma and turns her around without her consent... I'd say that's considered aggressive!

And he can be aggressive towards Jack too.. I wonder how much Jack 'accepted'..

Though I give him this -> he does not ever seem to direct his anger/aggression towards his girls.

~ j U d E [I can never figure out whether to write about the characters in present tense or past tense.. odd..]

[Jeff Wrangler]

Jude and Jeff, if one purpose of the 4th of July scene is to show that Alma has reason to fear Ennis' violence -- and it may well be -- it's lame. Beating up slop-bucket-mouthed bikers is pretty different from beating up your wife. My husband is non-violent, but say if he got in a fight with some guy in a bar, I can't imagine getting scared he would go after me next.

Indeed it is. Nevertheless, others have said they think she looks terrified in that shot where she's in the background holding the girls and Ennis is silhouetted against the fireworks, which is why I brought it up. Lame or not, I repeat, she certainly knows he's capable of violence after the Fourth of July if she didn't know it before.

On to some other thoughts, now that I'm home with Story to Screenplay in front of me. 

Can we be sure "Story Alma" doesn't know exactly what's going on when she opens the door and sees Ennis's "straining shoulders"? Personally, I'd say, What else could Ennis and Jack be doing--and what else could Alma think they're doing--except kissing?

But never mind me. More to the point, as early as minutes later when Ennis introduces Jack to Alma, AP tells us that Alma "had seen what she had seen." Yet at some undetermined time later, she still put the note in Ennis's creel.

[serious crayons]

Can we be sure "Story Alma" doesn't know exactly what's going on when she opens the door and sees Ennis's "straining shoulders"? Personally, I'd say, What else could Ennis and Jack be doing--and what else could Alma think they're doing--except kissing?

The way I read it, she knows what is going on.

And here's another thing: I was just thinking (in that ridiculous way I have of devoting all my daily thoughts to what characters in BBM should or shouldn't have done, as opposed to devoting them to my own work) that however much Alma was wronged over the years, her confrontation on Thanksgiving is unspeakably rude. She waits all those years when it would have made sense to mention something -- and then finally does so gratuitously, on a holiday, with their daughters in the other room. Is it because Ennis seems so much more manly than Monroe and that makes her uncomfortable? Is it because she feels financially secure enough at that point to express her bitterness openly?