Chrissi, thank you for pulling all these references out of the story for us, that was a lot of work.
I have tried to read this story several times to figure out how Annie Proulx made it work, but everytime I try I get lost in the story and lose my purpose.
I'm glad you didn't!
We know from the very beginning of the story that something happened between Ennis and Jack Twist, because they are no longer together, but we don't know what. What was the relationship between these two men, and what happened to Jack Twist were the questions that kept me reading.
For me, Images in a story, and the words knit together to make up those images, are like butter in the refrigerator. They take on the flavor of the words and images surrounding them.
These images of death pile one on top of the other and have a kind of cumulative effect. They give the story a gritty true-to-life feel, and they create an air of forboding that this is not going to end well.
The further I got into it, the more I wanted to it to end happily, but the more I felt it would not. These death images fuel that sense of impending tragedy.
When Jack actually dies, the timing of his death is surprising, but his death feels inevitable. I think all these death images contribute to that feeling of inevitability.