Mar and Twist

[Brown Eyes]

I dug deeply back in Open Forum for Throwback Thursday and stumbled across this old thread that started a good conversation, and I think it might be fun to see if the discussion could be expanded a bit.   LOL, I completely forgot I once started this thread...

To me the use of language in naming and in picking locations/ location names seems very important on metaphorical levels... in both the screenplay and Proulx's story.

Things like "Sage" and "Lightning" and "Flat" seem important.  Aside from the associations with wisdom and with herbs for cooking... does sage have other symbolic meaning?  And, "lightning" seems to evoke the "quicksilver" aspect of Jack and his general sense of energy and somehow "flat" evokes Jack's tragedies and disappointments.

I think the Earl and Rich observations are great.  I feel like there must be more things like this tucked away in the rich language of BBM... it makes the whole thing seem very poetic in construction.

[serious crayons]

This IS an interesting thread. I wonder why it didn't get longer at the time?

Artiste makes a very astute point. Dell is a valley. Lightning Flat is flat. Both are terms for landforms that are the opposite of mountains, as in Brokeback Mountain. Jack twisted away from his flat background. But Ennis can't climb out of the valley or out of the sea.

Dell is also a brand of computer, so it might suggest that Ennis, years later, would go back to school for a degree in computer programming.

[Brown Eyes]

Dell is also a brand of computer, so it might suggest that Ennis, years later, would go back to school for a degree in computer programming.

 
Good one K!  Maybe that could be the start of a new fanfic story...

I like the observation that their names refer to land formations.  It reminds me of old conversations about how Ennis is the "earth" while Jack is the "air."   In this regard "Twist" also evokes the idea of a tornado (twister) for me.

I keep feeling like "Signal" must mean something too...

[Front-Ranger]

Things like "Sage" and "Lightning" and "Flat" seem important.  Aside from the associations with wisdom and with herbs for cooking... does sage have other symbolic meaning?  And, "lightning" seems to evoke the "quicksilver" aspect of Jack and his general sense of energy and somehow "flat" evokes Jack's tragedies and disappointments.

Here's something from an interview Annie did with The Missouri Review that reveals her fascination with the metaphorical quality of names. Her mother asked her what some classical music made her think of. She said,  "'A bishop running through the woods,' I answered. I had no idea what a bishop was but liked the word for its conjunction of hiss and hiccup. What the music made me see in my mind's eye was a tall, glassy, salt-cellar figure, ”the bishop,” gliding through a dark forest dappled with round spots of light. The connections of perception between the sounds of the music and the image of trees / slipping figure / broken light had been made."

Jack was a "lightning rod" to the bigoted public and his simple wish to follow his dreams and be true to himself attracted ire. "Flat" expresses not only the disappointments and the harsh judgements of society to flatten him, but also the harmonica (itself a metaphor) that was flattened in a fall from a "filly" (rejection by society) and the way he may have died, from trying to pump up a flat tire which exploded on him.

Sage is a little more obtuse. Although sage is not the official plant of Wyoming, it probably should be. It has a sweet-salty aroma, like Jack and although it grows well in the arid climate, it is unpalatable to animals. To humans, it is tasty in small quantities and benefits the bloodstream. It is good added to beans! I guess that's the closest I can get for a reason Annie might have chosen Sage as Ennis's hometown. Sage and Lightning Flat are in the extreme opposite corners of the state and they are real places although both are ghost towns.

[serious crayons]

the way he may have died, from trying to pump up a flat tire which exploded on him.

Killed by trying to put too much air in something that was flat ...

[Penthesilea]

I looked up Mar and found that in Spanish it means of course sea/ocean, as we all know, but it also means

a lot of/abundance.

la mar   - abundancia      jede Menge
la mar   - abundancia        die Unmenge
(Leo dictionary)


la mar de loc adv (gran cantidad) a whole bunch of n phr
   loads of n phr
   tons of n phr
   scads of n phr
wordreference dictionary

which makes sense, because if I have a whole sea of [whatever], I sure have an abundance of it.

Not sure what to make of it though.


As far as Ennis goes, I found interesting things (I think).

Ennis means island, which is also not new, and in connection with Del Mar still makes the most sense to me: island in the sea.

However, Ennis also means "The only choice" in gaelic (meaning of names.com). I also found a definition that translated it with "one choice".

Now this I can relate to Ennis. He's a 'one-man-man'; he made his one choice with Jack and that was it for him. He also made the only choice he could make in regard to not living together and stuck with it till the end.
He also was Jack's one choice (Radall and Mexico be damned).
I think this "one choice" theme fits nicely with Ennis' character.

[Sason]

That's an interesting interpretation of the name Ennis, Chrissi. I haven't heard it before.

I agree with you, Ennis is a "one choice man", and he sticks with it.

But I can also see the "one choice" being interpreted in relation to external factors, not only to Ennis' personality.

He did, de facto, have very few choices in his life. No money, no education, small town,  a family to support regardless - there weren't  thaat many openings for him.

So, external and internal factors in combination created Ennis - the man of few choices.