Topic: sitting on the mountain together

[tpe]

True TPE- it doesn't.    And as you stated in an earlier post he would have put any type of spin on it if it meant keeping Ennis.

Yes, that is so interesting.  Jack's answer is not an answer to what Ennis said.  Also, probably a bit canny on his part (this man thinks on his feet, or on his ass or wherever) to say this, hopefully letting Ennis know that what happens on Brokeback stays on Brokeback...

kathy

Thanks LJN and kathy.

Evasion is sometime the best strategy.  Jack probably suspected that Ennis understood the deeper implications, but realized that Ennis was not about to own up to these implications -- at least out in the open.  Hence, Jack's enigmatic response.  The fact that Ennis responded "You know I ain't queer" told Jack that Ennis understood.

 

[tpe]

Yeah, I thought it was his way to reassure Ennis. something like "don't worry, go with your heart, nobody's gonna know".

You are right, keren.  It was an oblique reassurance.  I think Jack understood that Ennis can't face up to the relationship out in the open.  But it was also an oblique way of telling Ennis: "I don't care." 

[tpe]

I believe that to be true too.  In addition to finding out where Ennis's head was at, Jack seemed to want to put him at ease.  I think Jack would have said what was necessary to ensure that. This is not to imply Jack set out to be deceptive.

Yes, I don't think Jack had a reason for responding this way -- it was not driven by a need to be deceptive.  I think he realized that Ennis understood things at a deeper level, but was afraid of what he saw.  Ennis needed reassurance at least in Jack's eyes, and Jack knew what was wanted of him...

[tpe]

In a more general sense it also strikes me as a rathr independent-minded statemnet - suggesting that one can make one's own criteria and isn't necessarily subject to those of wider society. Or perhaps that the mountain is their world, where they make the rules?

The mountain did provide a certain peace and serenity.  It made things certainly easier for the two of them to come to terms with what was developing between them.

Good point, WW, that Jack would want to indicate to Ennis that all the old rules don't apply.  That this love-thing is indeed not anyone else's business.  Unfortunately, that only worked for them on the mountain.

kathy

Yes, I also thought that the statement suggested a challenge as much as it was meant to reassure Ennis.  It was a challenge born of the Mountain, and probably needed it to flourish.  I think this was why Ennis and Jack wnt back to the mountains in later years -- to affirm the fact and to set themselves apart.

[welshwitch]

It's very American, too, the notion that you can turn your back on the old country and ways and go to the new world and start over making your own rules, laws, customs.

Before the Pilgrim Father landed they saw themselves as about to become a city on a hill, a beacon to the rest of mankind - ironically Jack and Ennis turn their hill into a little world of their own, with their own rules, but keep it hidden from everyone, so that in the end, as Jack says, all they have is Brokeback Mountain.

When I looked at that scene again, I thought of "For God's sake let us sit upon the ground
                                                                  And tell sad stories of the deaths of kings,"
but also of the idea of measuring one's length on the ground, six feet of earth, which is all you're going to have in the end. For me there was a lot of foreshadowing in this scene. 

[tpe]

I agree ww.  A lot of foreshadowing. 

It is in the spirit of Whitman, this Mountain world of theirs...

[manhattangirl]

Ennis set the rules, but he was the one that couldn't live with the rules, and that's was his battle.  Jack left it open, it was no one's business but theirs.

[tpe]

Perhaps Ennis thought he could.  After all, he probably thought that he didn't really have a choice...