The short story

[Front-Ranger]

Hi, Mel! Happy day-after-the-full-moon! 

LOL, that airstream trailer belongs in our metal topic and our wind topic as well!!

[Lynne]

It was a shocking contrast to the Ennis I saw in the movie who (early on) was always tucking in his shirt because he cared about looking presentable despite his meager income.

This is another really good point, David.  I have a little different understanding of it, and this probably more rightly belongs in a movie thread instead of the short story, but what the hay?

First, I'm thinking that Ennis' clothes don't fit well - he's long in the torso and his shirt keeps coming untucked.  He probably gets them as hand-me-downs or from a thrift store or someplace like that.  The loss of the shirt that Jack takes is significant to him - he thought it probably lost in some laundry years before - because he only has a few (2, 3?) shirts.

But I also think that in the movie, the constant tucking-in-the-shirt belies a discomfort with who he is - he's not comfortable in his own skin.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I always imagined an old Airstream trailer, for some reason. (Never been inside one, so I don't know what they've got in the way of sinks. But that's what image the "curved sides" brings up for me.)

Mel, that's exactly the image I get--an Airstream! 

[Jeff Wrangler]

First, I'm thinking that Ennis' clothes don't fit well

Well, I think somewhere in the story there is a bit of description that indicates that Ennis is wearing a shirt that he's outgrown--like, at 19, he's still wearing a shirt made for a younger kid, undoubtedly because he couldn't afford to replace it. Poor kid. ... 

[karen1129]

Well, I think somewhere in the story there is a bit of description that indicates that Ennis is wearing a shirt that he's outgrown--like, at 19, he's still wearing a shirt made for a younger kid, undoubtedly because he couldn't afford to replace it. Poor kid. ... 

I'm sure any clothes he had were hand me downs from his older brother.  All he had in that sack was one shirt ! 

[nakymaton]

Tell you what, it isn't actually the trailer or the dreams that make the prologue so sad for me... it's the "Give em to the real estate shark, I'm out a here." Times are changing in Wyoming... the ranches are being sold for housing developments, and there's less and less room for a man who knows the weather, knows animals, belongs to an older time and economic system. And yet they aren't changing enough: not long after the short story was published, Matthew Shepard was murdered for being gay. (I agree that the prologue is set in the 90's, or in the never-ending present.)

Ennis didn't just lose Jack. He's also losing his way of life.

(And about the shirt... at 19, men are still growing from gangly boys into men.)

[moremojo]

Ennis didn't just lose Jack. He's also losing his way of life.

So true. I think that Larry McMurtry might have touched on this theme in some interviews, intimating that the story is in part about a changing Western landscape and culture. The story, in more ways than one, is a story of death.

[Jeff Wrangler]

So true. I think that Larry McMurtry might have touched on this theme in some interviews, intimating that the story is in part about a changing Western landscape and culture.

I've read someplace, too, that Annie is interested in that--people in changing economic atmospheres--in her other work, too.

[moremojo]

I've read someplace, too, that Annie is interested in that--people in changing economic atmospheres--in her other work, too.

Yes, I think I've seen something like that also, Jeff. McMurtry and Annie seem to be on the same wavelength in so many ways; I remember reading McMurtry express surprise and envy that the story of 'Brokeback Mountain' never issued from his mind and pen, considering his expertise in Western history and culture.

[Ellemeno]

Here's a slightly different way that I see what's described in the prologue (or epilogue that's placed at the beginning).

Ennis is all about economy - the economy of saving last night's coffee, of using a pan that most of us would have thrown out or given away a long time ago, the economy of motion when he pisses in the sink because it's right there to use (and it does make me assume that there is no toilet in the trailer).  The economy of knowing how to use the dream of Jack just right, so that it stokes his day.  He doesn't dive into the remembrance of the dream too fast and use it up, he economizes.

And while I sure don't ever wish for the life he has in that trailer, I actually get the sense that even though he's living this very isolated life in this wind- and gravel-battered micro-trailer, that that's not too bad in his book, because he is living more in his memories of his times with Jack, than he is in this present-day world.  So it doesn't matter (much) if he has very little, or that he's about to be uprooted to his married daughter's, because his valuables are completely portable and ever-present.