Ennis Stands It; Jack Fixes It

[Brown Eyes]

Gee, thanks Ellemeno.  I think the elk and sheep topic is really interesting.
 

[Meryl]

Very good thinking, Amanda.  I especially like the ELK sign as a harbinger of the reunion. 

[serious crayons]

Great observations, Amanda, nakymaton, and everyone! It's amazing that after all these months, we're still uncovering new metaphors.

I can't add any brilliant animal symbols, but I do want to make a point about the push-pull thing and Lucise's good observation:

To add to this "push-pull" dynamic that the 2 men shared, one scene that always gets me - during the confrontation scene, when Ennis starts crying, Jack comes over to console him, he screams out "Get the fuck off me!", what does Jack do without even giving it a second thought or a moment's reflection?  He grabs hold of Ennis, holds onto him tightly.  Jack knew Ennis so well, he understood that Ennis was literally saying the opposite when he pushed Jack away, Ennis needed Jack more than he ever admitted, I think Jack understood this, although it was killing him that Ennis couldn't face this truth and accept it for himself..

This scene is a perfect bookend of the push-pull they go through at the very beginning of their (romantic) relationship, in TS1, right after they've lunged up from the bed. Ennis throws Jack off, but Jack doesn't back away. Then ultimately Ennis reaches out and holds Jack's head.

There's kind of a partial version of this in the fight scene on Brokeback. But that one, unfortunately, does not end in embrace.

These are all among the reminders that Jack can read Ennis really well. We wish that Ennis was more verbally forthcoming with Jack, at least we know that, despite Ennis' taciturnity, Jack gets it.

[mlewisusc]

I got to thinking earlier today -- you know, the elk is really somewhere between "standing it" and settling for beans, and "fixing it" and shooting one of the sheep.

Beans: that's what they're supposed to be eating. Settling for beans is following the rules that society sets forth.

Sheep: a total transgression. They're going to be counted at the end of the summer. They're domesticated, associated with farms and ranchers and people.

Elk: still breaking the rules, but with something that's wild. Somehow shooting a wild animal seems a bit less like rule-breaking than shooting the sheep is, even though Ennis is technically poaching. But they're off in the middle of nowhere, and Fish and Game are unlikely to actually catch them at it. So it's a compromise.

So, the relationship. All those years of meeting in the wilderness. Is that settling for beans?

I think the relationship equivalent of beans would be even more bleak than what Jack and Ennis end up doing. Beans would have been going their separate ways after the reunion, Ennis continuing to try to be what he was taught he should be, refusing to ever see Jack again. 

Sheep would be Jack's "cow and calf" operation: having their relationship out in the open, in human society, to hell with the rules. It's a big wide world, and why would anyone notice Jack and Ennis in a world of thousands of sheep, and besides, it's nobody's business but theirs.

But what they do is a compromise, breaking the rules that Ennis (and probably Jack) learned early on, but breaking them in the wilderness, where the rules don't hold in quite the same way. Kind of like shooting the elk.

Except that the bull elk is a huge, magnificent beast, enough meat to keep two hungry 19-year-old boys satisfied for quite some time. Two or three meetings a year is hardly equivalent to an elk; it's more like a jack rabbit or a ptarmigan (a bird the size of a guinea hen), hardly enough to sustain two hungry boys for one meal, let alone a lifetime. 

Good Gravy!

Just when I thought I couldn't see another ounce of symbolism in this film!  Excellent, excellent analogy!

[Front-Ranger]

This is a great topic and there is also a poll on this same topic.