Brokeback Mountain Forum @ ennisjack.com
The Movie & Story => Characters, Quotes & Scenes => Topic started by: masetane on Apr 17, 2007, 05:18 PM
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In the short story, it says Ennis was from around Sage,Wyoming. Jack was from around Lightning Flat. Where is Lightning flat? I can see Sage but not this.
(and I understand that Signal, Wyoming does not exist but it came up on my Google earth???"
I love maps so just was curious to look at these places geographically.
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Lighting Flat is in NE WY up near the border with Montana. Try searching on MapQuest.
jackster
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Lightning Flat used to be on older maps but not the newer ones. I have scanned my 1993 map of northeast portion of Wyoming that still show where Lightning Flat was. It sits near the Montana border near the center.
(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi132.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fq40%2FJT-EDM%2Flightningflat.jpg&hash=1cf55f9f8ec71426b1a7ef5af4bc363629a59063)
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Ethan had the opportunity of visiting LF and other locations in WY that were mentioned in BBM. He showed pictures of this in last year's meeting in Montreal.
I don't remember if these pictures were posted here in the forum. But the pictures of the area around LF seem bleak and lonely. It didn't seem like a town -- more like lonely ranches set apart from one another. And the roads seem barely roads... For me, the pictures were very moving.
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Oh those pics would be so neat to see!!
Maybe it's off the map b.c there isnt a town anymore? I Google Earth'd Sage, WY and it looked like about 10 buildings in the middle of no where!!!
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masetane:
I've spent some time trying figure out where Ennis's family place might have been. 'Course AP says in the SS "from around Sage" - so it's probably not actually in Sage. He had to drive an hour to high school, so Ive tried to piece that together with no great sucess, high schools were pretty far afield in those days. Looked for a Dead Horse Road in WY and found one, but it's way over north of Casper. I love the way AP was able to pull out these places and yet leave so much unsaid to allow our imaginations to roam endlessly.
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Oh good point, I forgot he had to drive. Well Sage looks pretty tiny so no wonder.
For some reason, I'm very compelled to see what this kind of life is like -. I'm just outside NYC so it's a different way of life. Or maybe I'm just trying to bring these characters to life somehow. They feel so real, I've never had an experience like this!
I even went to realtor.com to look at houses b.c then you can sometimes see some of the backgrounds. Some in Riverton looked like they were in the middle of no where. Sort of how Ennis' first house (the one Jack drove up to for a surprise) and his trailer felt to me....I think there were some other trailer neighbors but it felt no where.
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I even went to realtor.com to look at houses b.c then you can sometimes see some of the backgrounds. Some in Riverton looked like they were in the middle of no where. Sort of how Ennis' first house and his trailer felt to me....I think there were some other trailer neighbors but it felt no where.
If you can plan a trip out there you should try an' go (in summer) it's awe inspiring. I located the pics I took, their at topic:
http://www.ennisjack.com/index.php?topic=7743.0
There's one shot of a distant trailer house way the hell out in the middle of nowhere, but actually about 10 mi. outside Riverton. The Wind River Mountains (where Jack 'n Ennis went alot) are in the background. A beautiful but desolate place. Be sure and check out the "Ennis & Jack" 1930s mural in the Riverton Post Office.
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Oh good point, I forgot he had to drive. Well Sage looks pretty tiny so no wonder.
For some reason, I'm very compelled to see what this kind of life is like -. I'm just outside NYC so it's a different way of life. Or maybe I'm just trying to bring these characters to life somehow. They feel so real, I've never had an experience like this!
Maybe they were real at one time in the past. I heard it somewhere that Annie Proulx said something guided her hand when she wrote the Brokeback Mountain SS. Maybe our boys?
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If you can plan a trip out there you should try an' go (in summer) it's awe inspiring. I located the pics I took, their at topic:
http://www.ennisjack.com/index.php?topic=7743.0
There's one shot of a distant trailer house way the hell out in the middle of nowhere, but actually about 10 mi. outside Riverton. The Wind River Mountains (where Jack 'n Ennis went alot) are in the background. A beautiful but desolate place. Be sure and check out the "Ennis & Jack" 1930s mural in the Riverton Post Office.
Thanks for the link, Jackster. The pictures of Riverton really brings me back to the movie and stirs me up emotionally. I can't help but think of Ennis and Jack and their way of life. That mural was really something.
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thanks so much!! Maybe AP saw the mural and used that for inspiration? Or a casting person did???
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Annie lives ( or did live) in Wyoming for a long time. She was very familiar with the surroundings, so probably just randomly chose sites without worrying too much about their exact location. Her other short stories are also placed in Wyoming. The countryside obviously means a lot to her; it figures prominently in all her stories. There is always the bleakness and unsettledness of the distant west.
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If you can plan a trip out there you should try an' go (in summer) it's awe inspiring. I located the pics I took, their at topic:
http://www.ennisjack.com/index.php?topic=7743.0
There's one shot of a distant trailer house way the hell out in the middle of nowhere, but actually about 10 mi. outside Riverton. The Wind River Mountains (where Jack 'n Ennis went alot) are in the background. A beautiful but desolate place. Be sure and check out the "Ennis & Jack" 1930s mural in the Riverton Post Office.
Thanks Jackster for providing the link! It is most helpful, especially since it spares many the task of searching through the forest of threads.
We should ask Ethan if he ever posted the pix he took around LF... It's been a while, and I can't recall just now of he did...
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We should ask Ethan if he ever posted the pix he took around LF... It's been a while, and I can't recall just now of he did...
He did, I'm pretty sure because I've seen some, but can't tell you where.
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That the name is a real one makes it more interesting - I wonder who named the place and why.
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He did, I'm pretty sure because I've seen some, but can't tell you where.
Thanks jackster. I hope he remembers. :)
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That the name is a real one makes it more interesting - I wonder who named the place and why.
Good question: where the name originated from.
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Is there an American equivalent of the English Placename Survey? I know you can find out about weird names like Truth or Consequences and we all know why NY, NJ, etc were names, but lots of American place names are pretty unusual.
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I'm totaly out of topic here and maybe we shall start a new topic about this :s) I mean weird names for cities and villages and their origination...
There's a village in Newfoundland (Canada) called... Dildo. :-X I'm aint' joking.
At least I wrote it with a capital D ::)
It's as remote (if not more) and one horse town as Lightning Flat by the way... Huh? They don't have horses in Dildo :s)
Whatever :i
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It's as remote (if not more) and one horse town as Lightning Flat by the way... Huh? Whatever :i
It's easy to find though, it kinda' stands out on the map. ^-^
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I kind of thought the "Flat" bit described a flat expanse of land, but then it didn't seem to make much sense in association with lightning, which strikes high points or the tops of spires, etc. and the other meaning of lightning, to do with speed, doesn't fit either.
The flat is also what horses race over in the UK if they're not steeple-chasers, ie jumping fences and water, so then I went off on to the idea of a horse that went like lightning on the flat, but that's a bit of a stretch too.
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I'm totaly out of topic here and maybe we shall start a new topic about this :s) I mean weird names for cities and villages and their origination...
There's a village in Newfoundland (Canada) called... Dildo. :-X I'm aint' joking.
At least I wrote it with a capital D ::)
It's as remote (if not more) and one horse town as Lightning Flat by the way... Huh? They don't have horses in Dildo :s)
Whatever :i
OT: Cham, a new topic about this would be most interesting.
Back to the topic:
From http://www.ultimatewyoming.com/sectionpages/sec3/lightningflat.html:
Right by the border of Montana, this one-time post office town was named for the violent lightning storms that often occur on the plain.
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Thanks tpe I knew I'd seen an explanation of that somewhere. American place names, especially Western American place names have a wonderful utilitarian romance. (take Brokeback for instance, or Signal) There is a famous poem by Stephen Vincent Benet titled "American Names" with a well known last stanza:
I shall not rest quiet in Montparnasse.
I shall not lie easy at Winchelsea.
You may bury my body in Sussex grass,
You may bury my tongue at Champmedy.
I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass.
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.
The poem can be found at:
http://home.comcast.net/~bryant.katherine/names.html (http://home.comcast.net/~bryant.katherine/names.html)
For some it might go: Bury my heart on Brokeback Mountain.
jackster
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Thanks tpe I knew I'd seen an explanation of that somewhere. American place names, especially Western American place names have a wonderful utilitarian romance. (take Brokeback for instance, or Signal) There is a famous poem by Stephen Vincent Benet titled "American Names" with a well known last stanza:
I shall not rest quiet in Montparnasse.
I shall not lie easy at Winchelsea.
You may bury my body in Sussex grass,
You may bury my tongue at Champmedy.
I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass.
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.
The poem can be found at:
http://home.comcast.net/~bryant.katherine/names.html (http://home.comcast.net/~bryant.katherine/names.html)
For some it might go: Bury my heart at Brokeback Mountain.
jackster
Beautiful jackster. Just beautiful. Thank you.
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That's where the Dee Brown book title comes from, then, but I wonder where the place-name originated?
All the place-names in the ss are interesting, if odd in various ways. It would be good to be able to look them up.
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OT, but interesting:
Two places in southern Indiana:
French Lick ( a famous resort. mineral springs, in there.)
Floyd's Knob (a lookout area over a declined railroad).
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There is a sense of desolation and dread in the name "Lightning Flat", no?
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I took the name at its face value. It is in a high elevation, so lightning often strikes, and it is rather flat, making decent farmland.
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Well, after all, it sits on the northern high plains which is famous for it's voilent thunderstorms. The rest of the great plains is famous for that and vast grass land. Look at the yellow area below LF. Thunder Basin NG. Again, a flat grassy area with violent storms. Also, there seems to be only one (gravel) road in town. Is that the only road that Jack knew?
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Ethan did seem to indicate that the roads were all country roads -- mostly gravel or dirt roads.
From Google Maps, it looks like Ridge County Road was the only "Main" road close to LF, and that road doesn't even go through it. From the sattelite images, you can't tell that there is even a town. It looks like cultivated land, without houses or settlements.
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Well, Ennis was an hour's drive from the high school, which I assume was in the nearest town, so wher he lived was remote, and eidently whaer Jack was brought up was too. He had already spent one summer on the mountain before he met Ennis, which makes i sound as if there were no jobs near his home - presumably the population was sparse and scattered - and so he's forced back on working for Aguirre.
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He had already spent one summer on the mountain before he met Ennis, which makes it sound as if there were no jobs near his home - presumably the population was sparse and scattered - and so he's forced back working for Aguirre.
Yeah, Jack wanted O-U-T, per SS:
"his boots were worn to the quick, holed beyond repair, and he was crazy to be somewhere, anywhere else than Lightning Flat."
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Having grown up in LF, Jack must have also had a lonely childhood. But he seemed to have reacted differently, compared to Ennis. And he certainly did not shy away from visiting LF, even when he had moved far away. Wanting to go back and live there speaks volumes in regard to his desire for a sweet life. Perhaps the isolation of LF made this the perfect place to settle with Ennis, in Jack's mind...
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Yes, but "going to see my parents in Lightning Flat" was also the acceptable reason for leaving Childress - I wonder if he'd have been so keen to go home if seeing Ennis hadn't been a possibility?
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Yes, but "going to see my parents in Lightning Flat" was also the acceptable reason for leaving Childress - I wonder if he'd have been so keen to go home if seeing Ennis hadn't been a possibility?
Somehow, I feel that he didn't mind being back. He didn't have to stop by LF after the last meeting. There was really nothing to push him to go. And the thought of settling there for a sweet life... Why not anywhere else? Strangely, he probably did not hate it so...
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Plus I think he was just a very sweet person and visiting his parents and helping them out was the "right thing to do". YOu know?
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Maybe. I suppose he wants to see his mother - can't see any reason for his wanting to see his father again, except maybe in an effort to impress him or make him accept him. Perhaps that's what lies behind the idea of bringing Ennis or Randall back to LF to work on the ranch - does he expect his father to be grateful?
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If Jack had created a life in Childress (or anywhere else) that he really loved and was proud of, he might not have gone back to LF so much.
I actually grew up in rural poverty--not in WY, but really not so different from the world of Jack or Ennis. The economy was farm and labor based; many jobs paid less than minimum wage, but no one said anything. We thought we were lucky to have work at all.
People who get out often don't go back. Some not at all; others only for holidays etc. Living as far away as Texas would have been an acceptable reason for Jack not to get back, or not more than once a year or so. I think his frequent trips back indicate that he is still trying to build the "right" life for himself; he's trying to start over from childhood, since he doesn't like his job or his marriage--certainly not his inlaws--and, sadly, he's not even crazy about his child, though he takes care of him.
Every time he goes to LF and leaves, it's like a new chance to start over. Remember, when he's in LF is when he builds the fantasies that "Ennis will come up here and we'll whip it into shape" or "Randall and I will come up here."
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Every time he goes to LF and leaves, it's like a new chance to start over. Remember, when he's in LF is when he builds the fantasies that "Ennis will come up here and we'll whip it into shape" or "Randall and I will come up here."
Yup, this is where he kept the shirts. :\'(
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Plus I think he was just a very sweet person and visiting his parents and helping them out was the "right thing to do". YOu know?
Yes, any dissatisfaction with his folks was probably outweighed by his sense of duty. And perhaps he did have strong affection for them -- well, at least for his mother.
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Maybe. I suppose he wants to see his mother - can't see any reason for his wanting to see his father again, except maybe in an effort to impress him or make him accept him. Perhaps that's what lies behind the idea of bringing Ennis or Randall back to LF to work on the ranch - does he expect his father to be grateful?
I agree WW. If not for affection, then perhaps he wanted his father to accept him more. Given the words of John Twist to Ennis, I suspect that it really didn't do that much. But who knows? Perhaps John Twist had come to see his son as a dreamer -- most of all because he wanted to come back.
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If Jack had created a life in Childress (or anywhere else) that he really loved and was proud of, he might not have gone back to LF so much.
I actually grew up in rural poverty--not in WY, but really not so different from the world of Jack or Ennis. The economy was farm and labor based; many jobs paid less than minimum wage, but no one said anything. We thought we were lucky to have work at all.
People who get out often don't go back. Some not at all; others only for holidays etc. Living as far away as Texas would have been an acceptable reason for Jack not to get back, or not more than once a year or so. I think his frequent trips back indicate that he is still trying to build the "right" life for himself; he's trying to start over from childhood, since he doesn't like his job or his marriage--certainly not his inlaws--and, sadly, he's not even crazy about his child, though he takes care of him.
Every time he goes to LF and leaves, it's like a new chance to start over. Remember, when he's in LF is when he builds the fantasies that "Ennis will come up here and we'll whip it into shape" or "Randall and I will come up here."
Very insightful, edgar. I do think that LF was somehow built into the fabric of his dreams.
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The obvious victory over his father would have ben to turn up there with money ( from LD?) and someone prepared to work with him, to turn it into what it ought to have been, and to prove to his father that he (Jack) wasn't the impractical dreamer and failur his father thought him.
But I also think he may have kept coming back hoping for his father's approval, first to show off his rodeo wins, then to talk about his wealthy wife, his job in a successful business and his son. It does seem odd that he has evidently done nothing to make the hosue at LF more comfortable, at least for his mother, but perhaps his father was ill-inclined to take anything from him.
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The obvious victory over his father would have ben to turn up there with money ( from LD?) and someone prepared to work with him, to turn it into what it ought to have been, and to prove to his father that he (Jack) wasn't the impractical dreamer and failur his father thought him.
But I also think he may have kept coming back hoping for his father's approval, first to show off his rodeo wins, then to talk about his wealthy wife, his job in a successful business and his son. It does seem odd that he has evidently done nothing to make the hosue at LF more comfortable, at least for his mother, but perhaps his father was ill-inclined to take anything from him.
I would say that that was indeed a large part of it -- to win his father's approval. I would also like to think that he loved seeing his mother. Between the two of them, he probably had enough reasons to go back to LF. With Ennis there, it would have been heaven for Jack.
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I also wonder why John Twist hated his son, or at least despised him, and according to the ss had done so since he was very young. He doesn't appear to think much of his wife either - it's odd that he fathered such an emotionally-open son. Must have been Mrs T's influence.
LF seems to me such a cold and cheerless place that maybe it should have been lightning-flattened.
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I also wonder why John Twist hated his son, or at least despised him, and according to the ss had done so since he was very young. He doesn't appear to think much of his wife either - it's odd that he fathered such an emotionally-open son. Must have been Mrs T's influence.
LF seems to me such a cold and cheerless place that maybe it should have been lightning-flattened.
Sometimes, I feel that John Twist must have loved his son in his own twisted way. Perhaps Jack's sensitivity, gentleness, and susceptibility to dreams made John Twist wary if his son. Sometimes, I think that John Twist and Ennis might have liked each other -- both were probably strong silent types with great reserves of stoicism. But John Twist certainly had a mean streak. Ennis ahd a lot of anger within, but I don't think there was any meanness deep inside of him...
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I don't think John Twist loved his son, nor hated him. I don't really think he thought about anyone but himself. He certainly gave no thoughts to Jack's last wishes about where to be enterred. He only wanted him in the family plot because John saw him as belonging there. The story in the SS that tells about John pissing all over the four-year old Jack tells us he didn't care, didn't understand, didn't give any thought to how to treat a child. Had he loved Jack, he could not have demeaned him as he did. I see nothing is the SS or movie that leads me to believe he loved Jack. He never taught him anything about bull-riding, never went to see him ride. Never, obviously complimented him, praised him, did anything but feed, clothe and house him. John is one man who needed a strong woman who would have taught him how to be a real man -- a loving, encouraging father. (I'm not bad-mouthing Mom Twist here, but her personality obviously wasn't strong enough to influence her husband in any important way. I always tend to blame mothers who allow others to abuse their children. Just my hang-up, I guess.)
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I don't think John Twist loved his son, nor hated him. I don't really think he thought about anyone but himself. He certainly gave no thoughts to Jack's last wishes about where to be enterred. He only wanted him in the family plot because John saw him as belonging there. The story in the SS that tells about John pissing all over the four-year old Jack tells us he didn't care, didn't understand, didn't give any thought to how to treat a child. Had he loved Jack, he could not have demeaned him as he did. I see nothing is the SS or movie that leads me to believe he loved Jack. He never taught him anything about bull-riding, never went to see him ride. Never, obviously complimented him, praised him, did anything but feed, clothe and house him. John is one man who needed a strong woman who would have taught him how to be a real man -- a loving, encouraging father. (I'm not bad-mouthing Mom Twist here, but her personality obviously wasn't strong enough to influence her husband in any important way. I always tend to blame mothers who allow others to abuse their children. Just my hang-up, I guess.)
This is certainly a different look at it: that John Twist didn't care or understand his son. THis is certainly not a case of simple indifference, no? Are you suggesting that he was too caught up in himself? It is plausible. I recall Patriot1's opinion that John Twist during Ennis's visit was just disappointed that nobody was helping him out on the ranch. Your point of view certainly does not contradict this, and may explain a number of things that we have assumed to be indications of hate: such as the urination scene -- the father wanting to teach the child a lesson without considering whether this would scar the child emotionally, for instance.
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Well, I certainly don't think John Twist had much sensitivity or any sense of a child's vulnerability - maybe as Jack grew up he was just baffled by having produced a son so unlike himself and angry without being able to understand why or do anything other than actions which simply drove Jack further away.
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In the SS we are given a bit more peek into the young Jack, one line in particular describing the room Ennis sees:
"An ancient magazine photograph of some dark haired movie star was taped to the wall beside the bed, the skin tone gone magenta."
This male pin-up along with the description of him being a "dreamer" makes me wonder if Jack's old man didn't think his son wasn't "man enough" and early on recognized some traits that he wasn't happy about. Jack's later talk about bringing Ennis up there and building a cabin probably just made the pieces fall into place for the old man.
OT - I've always envisaged this photo to be Mongomery Clift, I guess today it could be Jake Gyllenhaal! Dream on!
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This is certainly a different look at it: that John Twist didn't care or understand his son. THis is certainly not a case of simple indifference, no? Are you suggesting that he was too caught up in himself? It is plausible. I recall Patriot1's opinion that John Twist during Ennis's visit was just disappointed that nobody was helping him out on the ranch. Your point of view certainly does not contradict this, and may explain a number of things that we have assumed to be indications of hate: such as the urination scene -- the father wanting to teach the child a lesson without considering whether this would scar the child emotionally, for instance.
Basically, tpe, I don't mean to imply that I blame John Twist's attitude 100% on him. We have no idea how HE was brought up, or what influences in his life made him turn out like he did. Perhaps he came from a non-loving, or even abusive, childhood, so his indifference towards Jack was a learned behavior. I don't know the cause of his actions, but, from what Annie tells us alone, I draw the above conclusions. I don't think everybody just automatically understands or loves children. That's a learned behavior, according to the psychologists I have studied. Perhaps John had no one to teach him how to father a child. Of course, this is all conjecture, but isn't that all we ever have?
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Hmm this is interesting.
I grew up with a difficult father but I always went back to visit. For me, it was just simply the right thing to do. However much we didn't agree, he was my father. Clear as mud??? LOL
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In the SS we are given a bit more peek into the young Jack, one line in particular describing the room Ennis sees:
"An ancient magazine photograph of some dark haired movie star was taped to the wall beside the bed, the skin tone gone magenta."
This male pin-up along with the description of him being a "dreamer" makes me wonder if Jack's old man didn't think his son wasn't "man enough" and early on recognized some traits that he wasn't happy about. Jack's later talk about bringing Ennis up there and building a cabin probably just made the pieces fall into place for the old man.
OT - I've always envisaged this photo to be Mongomery Clift, I guess today it could Jake Gyllenhaal! Dream on!
jackster, I must say that I love the way you draw your interpretations from the details in the ss. I love especdially this one. Thank you.
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Basically, tpe, I don't mean to imply that I blame John Twist's attitude 100% on him. We have no idea how HE was brought up, or what influences in his life made him turn out like he did. Perhaps he came from a non-loving, or even abusive, childhood, so his indifference towards Jack was a learned behavior. I don't know the cause of his actions, but, from what Annie tells us alone, I draw the above conclusions. I don't think everybody just automatically understands or loves children. That's a learned behavior, according to the psychologists I have studied. Perhaps John had no one to teach him how to father a child. Of course, this is all conjecture, but isn't that all we ever have?
Perhaps he was indeed conditioned in this regard. After all, neo-Confucian thought also conditioned the Chinese for humdreds of years that to discipline their children harshly would be better than letting them off easy. Perhaps a similar thing existed in the life and world of John Twist. Certainly, LF was a harsh, unforgiving place, and perhaps John Twist and the people there were shaped by these very characteristics out of sheer necessity.
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Landscape creates character? It's been said, particularly about people who live in harsh landscapes where getting a living is difficult. I'd assumed, however, and for no good reason, that either John Twist of his parents had come from somewhere else ahd started up in LF because land was cheap and available. I supoose he or they could have grown up somewhere else altogether, but Jack lived there till he was something like eighteen, so it must have had a formative influence on him.
Did the mountain then condition J and E and their relationship?
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Landscape creates character? It's been said, particularly about people who live in hardsh landscapes where getting a living is difficult.
If you get the chance to read any of AP's other works, e.g. Bad Dirt, etc., they are peppered with characters just like old John Twist, westerners and "tough old birds". One of the reasons she likes Wyomin' I'd guess.
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Right, jackster. When I read her stories, it just puts me in that place. I can see those characters and hear them speak their dialect, walk their walk, etc. I've read them all severall times and find more and more in them each reading -- more to think about and wonder about. Welshwitch presents an interesting idea that perhaps BBM shaped Ennis and Jack's relationship. Barren in essence, but powerful and uncontrollable at the same time, no?
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Did the mountain then condition J and E and their relationship?
It perhaps would not have been possible without it.
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Right, jackster. When I read her stories, it just puts me in that place. I can see those characters and hear them speak their dialect, walk their walk, etc. I've read them all severall times and find more and more in them each reading -- more to think about and wonder about. Welshwitch presents an interesting idea that perhaps BBM shaped Ennis and Jack's relationship. Barren in essence, but powerful and uncontrollable at the same time, no?
Somehwere in "Close Range", or in one of her articles about it, Proulx harks back to the unities in her characters and their settings. Even in the apparently supernatural or macabre ones, you get this feeling that the characters could live and breathe nowhere else. In the Horrific "55 Miles to the Gas Pump", an explicit connection is made with the character and the remote setting.
BBM is no different. The Mountain is the third character in this story. It defines Ennis and Jack as a pair.
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Is there anyone besides me who finds mountains overwhelming? Visiting Colorado, I felt hemmed in by the mountains, stifled, weighed down. I have heard of others who feel the same way, but don't know how prevalent this feeling is. I love the look of the mountains, and love the idea of the isolation and the pristine nature they represent, but know I could never live in them. As we seem to be saying, the mountains defined, in part, the relationship between Ennis and Jack. The mountains' immovability and immutability seem to be echoed in Jack and Ennis's relationship. They are alone together in an unchanging, static situation. Nothing really changes in 20 years and it doesn't seem as if anything ever will change. No one else knows about their relationship, as far as the two men know. (Of course, WE know Alma knows!) The mountains have enclosed them in more ways than one.
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Is there anyone besides me who finds mountains overwhelming? Visiting Colorado, I felt hemmed in by the mountains, stifled, weighed down. I have heard of others who feel the same way, but don't know how prevalent this feeling is. I love the look of the mountains, and love the idea of the isolation and the pristine nature they represent, but know I could never live in them. As we seem to be saying, the mountains defined, in part, the relationship between Ennis and Jack. The mountains' immovability and immutability seem to be echoed in Jack and Ennis's relationship. They are alone together in an unchanging, static situation. Nothing really changes in 20 years and it doesn't seem as if anything ever will change. No one else knows about their relationship, as far as the two men know. (Of course, WE know Alma knows!) The mountains have enclosed them in more ways than one.
I have always loved mountains. I have loved the elevations better than seas -- and in the place I grew up, I had both. I miss mountains exceedingly. Here in Chicago, all mountains are man-made.
But there is something awesome about the great flatlands, especially in the middle of great thunderstorms. I can almost image the feeling when such storms pass over LF. IN the middle of it all, you feel insignificant. Land and sky swallow you up.
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I love mountains - conditioned by years of reading literature, maybe. I like to see them on the horizon, I like to look down from them and I like to be in among them - the fact that they dwarf a human being is what I like, as I love the open spaces of the desert. there is something in "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help" even if you don't believe.
I'm not very superstitious, but up in the mountains ( the Rockies) was the only place I have ever seen a ghost - sensed things in other places but not seen them.The mountains were always the abode of gods and spirits - I guess they still are.
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I love mountains - conditioned by years of reading literature, maybe. I like to see them on the horizon, I like to look down from them and I like to be in among them - the fact that they dwarf a human being is what I like, as I love the open spaces of the desert. there is something in "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help" even if you don't believe.
I'm not very superstitious, but up in the mountains ( the Rockies) was the only place I have ever seen a ghost - sensed things in other places but not seen them.The mountains were always the abode of gods and spirits - I guess they still are.
How interesting. I do sense something very spiritual in mountains. And at the cloudy summits, I dream a dream of Chinese literati landscapes...
THe plains are a different matter. It is not the same sense of spirituality. You get the feeling of infinity. And your insignificance. In LF, does time stand still?
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Their time in the mointains was atime out of time. In LF time passed - we can see that from the relics of Jack's past, his room and childhood toys. And of course the shirts.
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Their time in the mointains was atime out of time. In LF time passed - we can see that from the relics of Jack's past, his room and childhood toys. And of course the shirts.
Yes, this was the impression I got: time stood still or moved very slowly. Everything seemed to be in the realm of memory, or under the shadow of memory.
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I agree about the spirituality of mountains, but it is in the wide openness of the prairie land thatO was raised and find my freedom. When out among the acres and acres of growing corn, soybeans, milo, wheat, etc., the sight of a soaring hawk or eagle brings tears to my eyes.
Well, I think we resonate to the type of landscape in which we were born,or spent a big portion of out life, perhaps. That is why I am suggesting the mountains belonged to J and E and vice-versa. Their lives were defined, in part, by the mountains. Except for the reunion and motel scene, their lives together was in the mountains.
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I agree about the spirituality of mountains, but it is in the wide openness of the prairie land thatO was raised and find my freedom. When out among the acres and acres of growing corn, soybeans, milo, wheat, etc., the sight of a soaring hawk or eagle brings tears to my eyes.
Well, I think we resonate to the type of landscape in which we were born,or spent a big portion of out life, perhaps. That is why I am suggesting the mountains belonged to J and E and vice-versa. Their lives were defined, in part, by the mountains. Except for the reunion and motel scene, their lives together was in the mountains.
I thought it was the relative isolation of the mountains that drew them there. But to bring Ennis back to LF to live a life together -- perhaps this indicated that Jack still harkened back to the traditional notion of a homestead, as is rooted in the mytrhology of the Great Plains.
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It's also practical - the mountains may shelter and surround them, b=cutting them off from the outside world, but they;re not a sensible proposition in the winter - it's obvious that they couldn't meet there then. And they're not a practical proposition if you have to earn a living year-round either.
LF seems to me to offer isolation - it's not part of or even apparently very near a town, and it's in an area of spar** population. But it also offers somewher to earn a living, and to me a place where Jack, if he and Ennis succeeded, could say to his father, in effect, "Look what I've achieved that you didn't."
Why can't this stupid system cope with a word like S.P.A.R.S. E ???
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It's also practical - the mountains may shelter and surround them, b=cutting them off from the outside world, but they;re not a sensible proposition in the winter - it's obvious that they couldn't meet there then. And they're not a practical proposition if you have to earn a living year-round either.
LF seems to me to offer isolation - it's not part of or even apparently very near a town, and it's in an area of spar** population. But it also offers somewher to earn a living, and to me a place where Jack, if he and Ennis succeeded, could say to his father, in effect, "Look what I've achieved that you didn't."
Why can't this stupid system cope with a word like S.P.A.R.S. E ???
I think the relative isolation of LF was one of the reasons why Jack considered it. Ennis would not have objected too much, in Jack's mind, if their living together did not call attention to themselves.
It is interesting how both the mountains (BBM) and the plains (in this case, LF) could offer them the relative isolation that they needed. But Brokeback Mountain seemed to give us a sense of peace, whereas LF gives us a feeling of loneliness.
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Is there anyone besides me who finds mountains overwhelming? Visiting Colorado, I felt hemmed in by the mountains, stifled, weighed down. I have heard of others who feel the same way, but don't know how prevalent this feeling is.
Annie Proulx, speaking in Casper last October about cowboys mythology and the west, recalled how people from Wyoming she knew felt hemmed in and stifled back east because you couldn't see "anything". The vistas are typically so much shorter and there's all those darn forests and trees everywhere. They couldn't wait to get back out west so they could breath again in the wide open spaces. I guess it works both ways, depending on what's familiar and comfortable.
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I am from and still live in the mountains of North Carolina. Sometimes it makes me feel strange to be in a flat place where you can see so far. Here nothing is level. My sister lived in Texas for a long time and she said when she moved back here that everything you did required the effort of either going up or down. She is used to it again now. I actually live on the side of a mountain in an original log cabin.
Jack
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There are different types of mountains, too. Yours are beautiful, to me, jackster. I love the Smokies and have driven through the White Mts., the Green Mts. and several parts of Appalachia. I found those mountains soft, verdant, inviting, friendly. The Rockies are scary to me. The southern mountain ranges are particularly barren. Well, I'm just saying that topography is important to me. I think most people are comfortable in a particular type of setting. Obviously, the mountains similar to BBM were welcoming to Jack and Ennis.
Someone said above that it is harder to find real obscurity anywhere today, but in any of the vast mountain ranges in North America, this is still available. Although civilization seems to be encroaching everywhere, we're talking aboiut vast miles of emptiness ( empty of humanity) where two people could disappear quite easily even today. Perhaps that is part of what unnerves me. The fact that these are primeval places to which one could go and from which one may never return.
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I am from and still live in the mountains of North Carolina. Sometimes it makes me feel strange to be in a flat place where you can see so far. Here nothing is level. My sister lived in Texas for a long time and she said when she moved back here that everything you did required the effort of either going up or down. She is used to it again now. I actually live on the side of a mountain in an original log cabin.
Jack
Thanks Jack.
Now why didn't Jack consider doing something like this when he was dreaming of a sweet life with Ennis? Wouldn't it have been something for them to live in a cabin by the side of BBM, as opposed to ranching up in LF? If Ennis was into cattle, than I would suppose that they could have made the transition to sheep or goat herding.
I guess the answer lies in their never really going back to BBM. For them, it was a sacred place where they would never return.
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Thanks Jackster and lamusica.
The beauty of mountains also resonates with me. The plains have a different kind of beauty, I suppose -- something more difficult to appreciate compared to mountains. In some ways, both can engulf you -- leave you with a sense of smallness in comparison to each vastness.
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Someone said above that it is harder to find real obscurity anywhere today, but in any of the vast mountain ranges in North America, this is still available. Although civilization seems to be encroaching everywhere, we're talking about vast miles of emptiness where two people could disappear quite easily even today.
VERY true lamusica. After seeing Annie in Casper I drove three hours over to Riverton and Lander, about 150 miles. I passed twelve cars in three hours! When you drive 30 minutes at 60 mph and don't see a single person you get a much different sense of "personal space"! It is unnerving for a while especially when your alone. Makes you think about what it's like to be truely all alone way up on that mountain. Jack up on the mountain, Ennis down in camp (or vice-versa) by themselves mostly. Sometimes a whole day (or maybe more) would go by without seeing each other or anyone else of course. Makes you wonder what Jack was thinkin' when he came back to camp and Ennis wasn't there (when he got thrown), what would Jack do if he didn't show up? If he'd been badly injured by the throw and was lying somewhere in the dark. You couldn't go out looking at night. No wonder he was so secretly happy when Ennis finally showed up.
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I agree, If you don't live in a mountainous area, they can be quite intimidating. I drove from Pa. to New York City alone one time and went through some of these areas. The steep roads are very scary, especially if two semi-trucks hem ya in. driving a small Fiat car at the time in this situation was no fun . I felt *closed in* and scared and phobic. Never again %( %(.
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Actually when I think about it, it's true that the Appalachians/Great Smokies, whatever are much less intimidating than the Rockies - in some way you can comprehend the former - see a distance from them, see their extent. The Rockies seem enormous from a distance and unreachable - well, I thought so when we were driving the Oregon Trail - and when you're in among them almost impossible to escape from. Enclosing is maybe the word, which is what they did for J and E up on BBM of course.
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I paint a good deal, and often paint mountains of all sorts. Often lonely tumble-down ranches on flats like LF with mountains in the distance. I find great beauty in the loneliness of those types of settings. Again, great to visit in a painting, but wouldn't want to live there. Once had the opporyunity to do some watercolors while standing in a freshwater creek in the Smokies. Talk about a beautiful setting!
I'm sure Jack and Ennis loved the mountains. To them, they symbolized an opporunity to be together without fear or worry --- well worth the drive to get there from Texas.
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Sorry for not reading this thread earlier.
Here is a pic of map I got from Wyoming Tourism board.
(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi41.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fe266%2Fethanwow%2Fwy%2FP10209441.jpg&hash=13256f5961c321944afbe0085281684ca799f161)
Lightning Flat is shown on the map but there was no sign actually showing it. As you can see from the map, it is very close to the boarder to Montana. The landscape is very flat. Below is the link to the photos I took last summer in Wyoming.
http://ennisjack.com/index.php?topic=5695.msg179978#msg179978
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Sorry for not reading this thread earlier.
Here is a pic of map I got from Wyoming Tourism board.
(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi41.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fe266%2Fethanwow%2Fwy%2FP10209441.jpg&hash=13256f5961c321944afbe0085281684ca799f161)
Lightning Flat is shown on the map but there was no sign actually showing it. As you can see from the map, it is very close to the boarder to Montana. The landscape is very flat. Below is the link to the photos I took last summer in Wyoming.
http://ennisjack.com/index.php?topic=5695.msg179978#msg179978
Thanks Ethan.
Would you consider going back to LF? I think not, perhaps?
Jack must have been driven inside of himself to even consider going back and settling there. I don't think it was just because he grew up there. Many of us end up never really returning to the place of our birth to start life afresh...
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Thanks Ethan.
Would you consider going back to LF? I think not, perhaps?
Jack must have been driven inside of himself to even consider going back and settling there. I don't think it was just because he grew up there. Many of us end up never really returning to the place of our birth to start life afresh...
My pleasure. LF is a place as remote as one can get. I can't even imagine living in that place. As I was driving through the area, I already felt the loneliness. You are right that Jack must have felt something to even consider going back and settling there. If Ennis would come alone, it probably would be a sweet life.
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My pleasure. LF is a place as remote as one can get. I can't even imagine living in that place. As I was driving through the area, I already felt the loneliness. You are right that Jack must have felt something to even consider going back and settling there. If Ennis would come alone, it probably would be a sweet life.
Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse--and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.
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then of course there's Keats:
Love in a hut, with water and a crust,
Is- Love, forgive us! - cinders, ashes, dust.
Cynic that I am, I wonder how long it would have been before Jack wanted something more than isolation out " way the hell out in the middle of nowhere."
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then of course there's Keats:
Love in a hut, with water and a crust,
Is- Love, forgive us! - cinders, ashes, dust.
Cynic that I am, I wonder how long it would have been before Jack wanted something more than isolation out " way the hell out in the middle of nowhere."
I suspect that LF with Ennis would have suited him sufficiently. I suspect that it was Ennis that mattered more.