Topic: WAS DOMINANCE AN ISSUE?

[tpe]

Yes, tpe, I think that Ennis's efforts of trying to "fend off" Jack is not primarily a question of Ennis's fear of a public exposure of his homosexuality.  Instead, I think he tries to keep Jack at a distance because of the (growing) differences in their personalities.  I think it is possible to be in love with someone and also realize (intuitively) you can't live together. 

Ennis falls deeply in love with Jack.  He feels emotions for Jack he never knew could exist.  But these emotions can not overcome the suspicion that it is not possible for him to live together with Jack under any circumstances - not even if all of Wyoming became more gay-friendly than San Francisco or Amsterdam, not even if he had never married Alma or had children, not even if Ennis had no more fears of being found out as  gay.

There is a distance between them that can't be bridged.  In fact, it is the distance between what Ennis "knows" and what he "tries to believe" - As Annie Proulx puts it in the second to last line of her Short Story.

I'm not certain what it is that Ennis sees as separating him from Jack.  Whatever it is, it makes it impossible for Ennis to feel it would be "right" to live with Jack.

One way of attempting to resolve this question is to ask another question.  If Ennis isn't willing to live with Jack (whom he's in love with), who is Ennis willing to live with?  Alma is the obvious answer.  (Ennis also lived with his brother, K.E., before K.E. got married.)  Alma is, as you say, his "life partner." Ennis chose her, out of all women, to get married to.  He lived with her for twelve years (from their marriage in November 1963 until there divorce in November 1975).  In the Short Story, Annie Proulx, says it is Alma, not Ennis, who "had enough" and got a divorce.  (Alma may have been having an affair with Monroe, the grocer.  Annie Proulx says that Ennis felt "vaguely cheated" by the divorce.)

Certainly Ennis is afraid of an exposure of his homosexuality because he knows all too well what can happen "to fellas like us" and "boy like you" (as he refers obliquely to his and Jack's homosexuality).  Ennis fears being beaten, mutilated, and murdered - just as the old rancher Earl was, with Ennis even suspecting that his own father might have committed the murder (and then, laughing, showed his sons, Ennis, age 9, and K.E., age 11, Earl's dead body laying in the irrigation ditch).  That certainly left an impression on Ennis.  How could it be otherwise?

I think Ennis was also afraid of the psychological consequences of his public exposure as a homosexual.  What sort of change might result in his perception of himself (his own image of himself) as a result of his being publically identified homosexual, in other words?

Domination is an issue between Ennis & Jack, but it's not the main one.  (Again, the main issue, in my opinion, is the difference in their personalities that prevents Ennis from living with Jack.)  Ennis does psychologically dominate the relationship.  First, he decides how frequently he & Jack will see each other.  (Since such meetings are necessarily consensual, agreeable to both, Jack must follow Ennis's lead here.)  Second, Ennis takes advantage of Jack's own self-doubts in order to silence Jack when ever Jack becomes critical of the status quo between Ennis & Jack.  When Jack suggests that they might live together as ranch parents on Jack's parents' ranch or even that Ennis might get out of Wyoming (after Ennis wonders aloud if Jack has ever thought people might "know" if someone is homosexual just passing by as strangers) and move to Texas, Ennis typically begins to accuse Jack of being a "dreamer" who lacks "realism."

But if Ennis uses dominance, it's largely as a self-defense measure.  I don't think he actively seeks to dominates others for the sake of his putting himself in a position of dominance over them.  For example, when he grabs Alma by the arm and twists it during their argument in the kitchen after Thanksgiving dinner, he does so because he's afraid Alma's about to put into words what she's thinking (what they both know she's thinking): Ennis & Jack had sex together on their "fishing trip."

After Ennis breaks down and begins to cry during their May 1983 argument, saying to Jack "Because of you I'm this way...nothing), Jack rushes to hold Ennis in his arms.  Ennis, at first, breaks free.  But then Ennis relents.  He lets Jack hold him in his arms.  He allows Jack to take the obviously dominant, protective postion. 

Perhaps, when Ennis says "I can't take this anymore," he's not talking about ending his "ride" with Jack.  (After all, Ennis sends Jack a postcard saying they can meet in November.  Ennis is still very interested in seeing Jack again.)  Rather, Ennis could be thinking about the way he's behaved toward Jack (accusing Jack of a lack of "realism," eroding Jack's self-confidence).  Ennis could also think of the way he's behaved toward himself (seeking to pretend he's not homosexual).

There seems to be some change in Ennis after their May 1983 argument.  The mask (of a false "hardbitten," "cynical" public appearance covering up the emotions they feel underneath) that Ennis begins wearing after his divorce from Alma falls away.  Ennis again becomes "vulnerable" (just as he was when he was nineteen years old with Jack on Brokeback Mt.). 
 

How interesting!  I don't know whether I subscribe to it as you see it, but it is certainly a valid point of view.

MY difficulty here is that it would seem to imply an innate incompatibility between the two of them.  And there is certainly no reason to think that such incompatibilities did not exist.  The growing differences over the years may have also been helped along by changing circumstances, but I suspect that this is not the only thing you are implying,am I right?

I do have to agree that in many/most instances, Ennis did seem to use dominance as a defensive mechanism against Jack's demands.   And yet, it is interesting to note that Jack himself never really made an all-out assault on Ennis, perferring to bide his time patiently, hoping that Ennis would inevitably see things his way.  In other words, the defensive mechanism was largely set up against someone who perhaps was more passive in his approach, and one can argue that Ennis knowingly or unknowingly used this to his advantage.  THis held up until the last meeting, when Jack was at an end to his patience, I guess.

As for Alma, she was initially largely passive in her approach to Ennis.  But in a sense, she did succeed in that area where Jack didn't: manifest her independence from Ennis and finally insisting that they go on their separate ways. 

[aintfoolin]

 I feel Ennis is by nature , a dominate personality when it comes to certain situations, but I still agree that had Jack tested Ennis's resolve more earlier on he may have suceeded more. Ennis is not a robot without emotion . He is more vulnersble than Jack gives him credit for imo. I am not one who subscribes to a fact that Ennis's "softer side" could not be stroked. We saw Alma do it when she talked Ennis into moving from the rural ranch atmosphere to living above the laundry without a horse in sight. She appealed to his sense of lonliness  and used the children ( so they would'nt grow up isolated as he did) to get the job done. An insistent yet gentle approch worked. This struck a chord in Ennis, that his girls would have friends unlike his own childhood. Maybe Jack coud've been a little more insistent in this area. He did'nt have two children to appeal to Ennis with but he needed to plead his case somehow. Certainly his options were more limited than Alma, but he had an ace in the hole as far as Ennis heart is concerned. He owned it. All it would have taken is a little more communication about what is going to happen in the future. For his own sake he must demand answers. If Ennis continues to hem-haw around this thing , then more drastic measures would have to be taken such as an ultimatum. Jack needed a catylist, something to play, and what is it that Ennis cannot do without? Jack's love and just Jack period. Jack needed to play this hand up.  This is Jack's  dominant card to play. Once Ennis takes this first step, the rest is esaier to take. Ennis is not a big thinker on his own. He needs that engaging factor to get him to open up more. Left to the status quo, Ennis will never step over that line which is comfortable to him. Jack tried this in the divorce scene, but Ennis does'nt like surprises, and once again Jack gives in to easily. Had Jack said :" I'm here right now, and you let me leave, I'm never coming back, because I can't stand the rejection of our love," Maybe Ennis would'nt have been so quick to let Jack just leave the way he did. He sold himself to Ennis and Ennis bought in hook, line and sinker. The thought of loosing Jack forever had already been tried in the 4 years apart. It failed. Asking Ennis to at least meet him halfway was not to much to ask imo. Jack should have put Ennis's vulnerabilities to the test. At least he would know where he stood in the scheme of things. In this regard also Jack would'nt feel so helpless and could explore more, his other options such as Randall, or starting his own ranch. Perhaps this would give his life more direction. With or without Ennis he needed to get on with his life. My opinion.

[welshwitch]

I agree, aintfoolin'. Jack gave way to Ennis for so long when he should have challenged him if only for the sake of his own welfare. In the end it did him no good to go along with Ennis and turn up every time he was asked, go away every time he was told and make no counter-demands of his own. Ennis became locked into this pattern and assumed it would go on for good - Jack never shook him out of his complacency but had he tried what would he have lost ? And what did he have to gain? Either more commitment from Ennis or the chance of breaking free and finding someone else.The trouble was that he clung to what little Ennis gave him because he was afraid of losing him but never seemed to value himself enough to think that he deserved better.

[jetzenpolis]

MY difficulty here is that it would seem to imply an innate incompatibility between the two of them.  And there is certainly no reason to think that such incompatibilities did not exist.  The growing differences over the years may have also been helped along by changing circumstances, but I suspect that this is not the only thing you are implying,am I right?

Ennis's & Jack's Innate Incompatibility


I admit that my view of Ennis & Jack having an innate incompatibility is certainly a "worst case scenario" for them (at least, for Jack, anyway).  I think there are many times, especially in cases where one lover in a romantic pair is more "in love" than the other, that there is a feeling of insecurity that surrounds their love.  What is the source of this insecurity?  Obviously, the lover who feels insecure would prefer not to feel this way.  But if this feeling of insecurity exists, it won't go away by refusing to look at it.

Obviously, as Annie Proulx points out in her January 19, 2006 KCRW "Bookworm" interview with Michael Silverblatt, she designed the writing of her Short Story (SS) so that its readers would have to fill in its missing details with their own personal history, intuitions, and observations of others using the "hints" (suggestions) provided in her narrative.   Thus, there are many ways to interpret Brokeback Mountain.  The author intended that.

Among her most intriguing comments in the "Bookworm" interview is that Annie Proulx said she felt guided in her writing of Brokeback Mt. (It didn't all come from within her.)  When she saw the movie, she said she felt as if Heath Ledger had reached into her mind and pulled out Ennis del Mar.  (Heath Ledger's Ennis is exactly who she pictured Ennis to be.)

http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/bw/bw060119annie_proulx

I would like to believe that Ennis & Jack could have found someway to live together.  (Please convince me!  I would love to change my mind on this point!)  But in my gut, I feel that Ennis would never agreed to live with Jack under any circumstances.  The question then, for me, becomes what prevents Ennis from agreeing to live with Jack?  Again, I feel it has something to do with a difference in their personalities or their values or their perspective on life.

But Ennis also loves Jack (and Ennis chooses to live with Alma as his life partner, not Jack).  There is some internal conflict with Ennis.  In other words, part of Ennis loves Jack - especially the nineteen year old young Jack on Brokeback Mt. with buck teeth and wavy hair; not the mature Jack with straightened teeth and a mustache "filled out through the hams and shoulders."  Another part of him chooses to live (and continue to live) with Alma, presumably because he finds some degree of compatibility (completion) in living together with her.  Just as Ennis will never voluntarily agree to live with Jack, he'll never initiate a break with Alma.  It's Alma who decides to get a divorce from Ennis (even though both grow more distant from each other over the years).

Ennis, although an introvert (perhaps because he is an introvert) doesn't respond well to any sort of pressure.  Any sort of ultimatum Jack might have issued would have probably backfired.  Skittish already, Ennis makes up his mind and refuses to change it (until the internal pressure building up within him causes to change it: on his own terms, in his own time). 

Remember what happens when Alma brings up the topic of Jack while they do the kitchen dishes (in her & Monroe's house) after Thanksgiving.  Ennis tries to bring Alma's discussion of his "needing" a woman in his life to a close by saying, "Once burned..." (with Alma saying that she and their daughters are worried about his being alone). 

Of course, Alma seems to be seething beneath her cool surface.  There's an anger (a bitterness?) that appears behind her attempt to smile at Ennis's self-deprecating description of his own short rodeo "career" to his daughters at the Thanksgiving dinner table.  It seems to continue in the kitchen.

When Ennis says "Once burned...," it's too much for Alma to hold back, anymore.  She describes the note she attached to Ennis's fishing pole in his tackle box that he never opened (Alma knowing it had never been opened because it was still there 5 years later).  She "knows" what Ennis & Jack were doing on their "fishing" trips, just as much as she knew what she saw when Ennis & Jack kissed each other in their embrace at the bottom of the steps up to their apartment over the laundromat in 1967.  Alma has a "cool head" but she also still has very strong feelings where Ennis is concerned.

The strength of her feelings frighten Ennis.  He is also afraid of his homosexuality being exposed.  Obviously, Alma has opened a Pandora's Box of Ennis's fears about having his homosexuality exposed.  He can never close the lid on that box, again, as far as Alma is concerned. 

He tells Alma she knows "nuthin about it."  (Ennis might also be upset that she says, "Jack Twist?...Jack Nasty!"  She doesn't know his history with Jack.  He's in love with Jack.  Ennis doesn't think his love for Jack is "dirty."  He sent up a prayer to heaven in thanks for his being with Jack, again.) 

Alma says, "don't try to fool me, Ennis!"

After she says, "Jack Twist?...Jack Nasty!" and is about to put into so many words that Ennis & Jack were having sex, Ennis twists her arm to stop her from saying anything more.

Alma yells at him to get out of her house.  Ennis bolts.  He leaves as quickly as he possible can.

Much the same sort of response comes from Ennis in his May 1983 argument with Jack.  Ennis has a standard set of responses to Jack about his refusal to go along with any of Jack's plans for them to live together.  He's afraid that if the "thing" (their kiss at the bottom of the steps leading up to his & Alma's apartment over the laundromat in 1967) ever happens to them again in the wrong place, at the wrong time, they'll be dead; he & Jack have commitments to their wives and children; he can't risk his visitation rights to his daughters; he has to keep his job to pay alimony payments for support of his daughters, etc. 

What happens when the argument heats up (when Ennis decides to "cut fence" and trespass across a boundary he can never cross back from, again, according to Annie Proulx in her Short Story)?  Ennis breaks down and tells Jack "Because of you I'm like this...nothing!"  Then he goes on to say - more of less - that he's "nothing" because he had to give up "all those jobs" to be with Jack.  (I believe he feels he's "nothing" for a different reason.  He doesn't have anyone in his life fulltime.  He's a workaholic: using work as a sedative for his emotional pain just as much as Jack uses alcohol to fend off the loneliness he feels when he's away from Ennis.)

I believe their May 1983 argument does change Ennis for the better.  Ennis, of course, does not come out of his closet by any means.  But he's far less willing to keep up the pretense that he is a heterosexual.  He drops Cassie.  (Of course, he drops her in a way that hurts her.  He refuses to answer any of her letters.)  He also shows vulnerability, again, dropping the frozen mask of falsehood his face seems to have become in his more mature years after his divorce from Alma (except the time when he brings up the topic of people being able to tell that he's homosexual with Jack on a "fishing" trip).

But what difference would it have made anyway for Jack if he tried to press Ennis on the topic?  (Jack always  withdraws rather than continues the disagreement.)  In the end, he had nothing to lose.  Of course, Jack didn't know that at the time.  He was afraid of losing Ennis.  But even he lost Ennis, he would have had more time to find somebody else.

I think Ennis loved Jack for Jack's gentle, loving side.  There is a part of Ennis that is the same as that gentle side of Jack.  But he chose Alma as a life partner because he saw her as having particular qualities that he saw either as lacking or doubtful in himself: cool-headedness, shrewdness (particularly about financial matters), independent-mindedness, a willingness to change course (Alma wasn't afraid of change when she perceived it as an improvement), etc.

To put it in terms of New West vs. Old West, Jack represented the "New West" and Alma represented the "Old West" for Ennis. 

I don't think Ennis was particularly interested in the New West's love of natural beauty, greater acceptance of the need for government regulation, etc. (at least not to the degree that he would ever think of himself, or any side of himself, as being "New West.")  Rather, Ennis was torn being two differing aspects of Old West culture: 1.) the friendly side of it where families and neighbors live together, watching out for each other 2.) the more masculine side of Old West culture in which rugged individuals compete against each other for the acquisition of quick riches or even survival in a no-holds bar laissez-faire capitalist society.  Jack appealed more to this first side of Old West culture; Alma appealed more to the second side, in many (but not all) ways.  Ironically, in many ways, Alma provided a more "masculine" counterpart to Ennis's character in their marriage.

Jack has his complexities of character, too.  While the gentle side of the young Jack most appeals to Ennis as his male lover, there is side of Jack that seeks to step back from an attachment to his own gentle side.  Perhaps this is a result of Jack's own observations of his parents: a gentle, kind mother and a cruel, harsh, negligent father (who may have abused his wife). 

Jack is simultaneously pulled toward Ennis (enough so that he makes plans to live with him) but there is a part of him that is separate from Ennis's own gentle, kind, tender side. 

In the end, Ennis can't live with Jack because he's pulled apart too much by the own contradictions of his own values and perspectives on life.  Ironically, when Jack decides he can no longer continue his "ride" with Ennis, he has found Randall, a man whom Jack realizes in his blank stare that is willing to pursue Jack, someone whom Jack will no longer have to pursue with futility.  All Jack has to do is say, "yes" to Randall.  Jack couldn't believe that something like this could happen to him after all the frustration and disappointment with Ennis.

[manhattangirl]

Ennis was a totally "by the rules" guy,  I think this something he got from his father,  until the dope found that curve in the road, that wasn't suppose to be there.   

Anyway, Ennis always played by the rules,  which leads him to Alma after his brother and sister leaves him on his own.  Ennis was content in living his life just like everyone else. 

Then enters Jack, and everything he thought was supposed to be the "right thing" turn into that "thing",  the rules changed.  What are the rules?   He wants the rules back, and can't have them back.  Fighting it from then on and all in his head.   

After marrying Alma he knew somewhere deep inside him he was lacking something and that was Jack.   Not in the rules but not willing to let Jack go, but not willing to give in to Jack.   He battles with him, and tries to control him. 

Alma was a safe haven, a retreat from his true passions, his true need,  leaving nothing for her but the knowledge she wasn't what he wanted.         

 

[jetzenpolis]

Alma Argues for Moving to Town (Girls won't have Childhood as Lonely as Ennis's)

I feel Ennis is by nature , a dominate personality when it comes to certain situations...Ennis is not a robot without emotion . He is more vulnerable than Jack gives him credit for IMO. I am not one who subscribes to a fact that Ennis's "softer side" could not be stroked. We saw Alma do it when she talked Ennis into moving from the rural ranch atmosphere to living above the laundry without a horse in sight. She appealed to his sense of loneliness and used the children ( so they wouldn't grow up isolated as he did) to get the job done. An insistent yet gentle approach worked. This struck a chord in Ennis, that his girls would have friends unlike his own childhood.

I agree aintfoolin that this small scene between Ennis & Alma is important.  It says a lot about what approach is best if you're going to get Ennis to change his mind.  Alma meets Ennis's objections with a practical answer.  Ennis argues that it's too expensive to live in town when Alma says she'd like to meet there.  Alma responds that she's found an inexpensive apartment over the laundromat.  However, Ennis is still reluctant.  He's told Alma she could fix up this place (the house on the ranch) "real nice" if she wanted to.  Alma telling Ennis that their daughters wouldn't have as lonely a childhood as he did (presumably because they could meet more children their age if they lived in town) is what finally moves Ennis to change his mind.

Ennis had a brother (brothers?) and a sister (sisters?), who tried to stay together on the ranch after their parents died, yet his childhood could be described as "lonely."  Did Ennis feel lonely because he felt somehow "different"?  This is a description many gay and lesbian adults often use when they talk about how even in childhood they knew there was "something" that set them apart from their peers that made them feel "different."

There's a point, early in the movie, where Jack tells Ennis on Brokeback Mountain that was more words than Ennis had spoken to him (with Ennis using several complete sentences in a row) than the whole time they had been there.  Ennis replies (laughing, as if its the first time he's laughed in a long, long time), "Hell, that's more words than I've spoken in a year." 

I believe Ennis when he says he hasn't said much the past year.  What happened to Ennis in the past year?  He had to leave the place he was staying in with his brother: his brother (K.E.?, another brother?) was getting married and there was "no room" for Ennis.  (Ennis seems to suggest, perhaps, in that situation, he felt forced to leave.  Even though he was introvert he sought the company of his family.)  He also becomes engaged to Alma, his fiancé. 

A lot has happened.  Yet, even though he's engaged to get married, he hasn't said much in the past year, not even to his fiancé.  He is in introvert.  But it is odd that he's been so silent.

Perhaps he's disturbed about the situation he finds himself in life.  Perhaps he already knows (or suspects) he is  homosexual.  He doesn't know what to do about it.  He decides to do what he thinks what everyone else does.  In other words, he follows what he thinks is the "normal" course of life's events.  (Obviously, as a teenage high school dropout living in rural Wyoming, he probably doesn't have a lot of information readily available to him about homosexuality - especially since he's far-sighted and "reads" only horse supply catalogues according to Annie Proulx in the Short Story.) 

He finds a girl (Alma) and becomes engaged to her.  (That's not to say he doesn't have feelings of some sort for Alma.  He may love her for her personality, even if his sexual interest in her is lacking.)

I think Annie Proulx also says at some point in the Short Story that Ennis liked to live light because it allows him to move easily.  Ennis might have felt the need to be able to move on quick notice because he feared (perhaps subconsciously) that there might be a time when - if his homosexuality became pubically exposed - he would have to get out of town quickly before some homophobic posse came after him to hunt him down.

[jetzenpolis]

Jack's Never Answers Ennis's Objections to Their Living Together (with a Convincing Counter-Proposal)

...Maybe Jack could've been a little more insistent in this area. He didn't have two children to appeal to Ennis with but he needed to plead his case somehow. Certainly his options were more limited than Alma, but he had an ace in the hole as far as Ennis heart is concerned. He owned it. All it would have taken is a little more communication about what is going to happen in the future. For his own sake he must demand answers...

When Alma convinces Ennis to move to town (into the inexpensive apartment over the laundromat), she is able to meet all of Ennis's objections with a counterproposal (that Ennis would view as "practical").  Jack fails to do this. 

Jack's idea for them to ranch together on his parents's ranch in Lightning Flat was a practical proposal (especially if Jack's father was more interested in seeing the ranch continue in operation than whether his son was living with his ranch partner in a homosexual relationship). 

But Jack never succeeds in meeting Ennis's objections about what will happen to his children.  In fact, he doesn't even try. 

They never seem to be a part of Jack's future plans.  Jack seems willing to leave his own wife and son at a moment's notice, perhaps without a word of explanation, as soon as Ennis agrees to live with him.

In turn, this might raise some doubts in Ennis's minds about what sort of person Jack is. 

Ennis loves Jack.  In fact, he's deeply in love with him.  Jack makes him feel the way nobody else ever has before - man or woman.  In the Siesta Motel in 1967, Ennis tells Jack that since he last saw him he has "wrung it out a huntert times" thinking about him.  He's never thought about another man.

But can he live with Jack? 

Sometimes he is tempted.  On one of their camping trips, Ennis asks Jack if he thinks, too, that people can tell who "fellas like us" are - just by looking at him, on the street, knowing nothing else about him. 

Jack responds that Ennis needs a change.  Ennis might need a change.  Ennis could move.  Perhaps he could move to Texas.  For a moment, as Ennis takes in Jack's suggestion, he wavers. 

Suddenly, Ennis realizes what Jack is up to.  Jack is trying to get him to move to Texas! 

In response (upset that Jack might have taken "advantage" of him in a moment of vulnerability), Ennis irritatedly berates Jack for his "impractical" schemes.  Ennis sarcastically adds that (in Jack's perfect world), Alma and Lureen would give them custody of his daughters and Jack's son (or something similar). 

Ennis gets so caught up in his own emotions while berating Jack (irritated because he let Jack's dreams start to get to him) he forgets what he's doing.  His blue plastic bucket floats downstream.  Ennis chases it, still telling Jack how ridiculous his scheme for their living together is, never letting up. 

Jack, with resignation and a weary irritation of his own, replies "It was just an idea."

I think the two of them have a different style of thinking.  Ennis probably has a greater need for setting things in "order" and remaining in "control."   He likes to have new ideas laid out completely, in all their details, before he will even consider acting upon them. 

Jack, more creative, likes to throw ideas out, first.  Then picking the ones he likes best, he works out the details later (after he's already decided to act upon them). 

Jack would have been open to a discussion with Ennis about how they could put together a plan to live together.  They could then go over this plan and change it to meet Ennis's worries about a loss of custody for his daughters. 

Ennis might not have understood this about Jack.  Perhaps Ennis - who is a keen judge of other people's character - didn't want to understand this about Jack, either.  (It would have forced him to either start planning to live with Jack or admit to Jack that he didn't want to live with him.)

We often assume that because two people have fallen "madly," "head-over-heels" in love, they can live together.  In this romantic view of love, we - all of us! - can find somewhere, someplace, sometime, our "one true love," our "perfect" partner who will meet all of dreams and expectations. 

But sex, romantic love, and living together are three separate issues. 

In other words, the other person who most sexually arouses us may not happen to be the same person who we are going to fall most deeply in love with.  In addition, whom we fall "head-over-heels" in love with may not be the same person whom we would most enjoy sharing our lives together with (by living together).

We may never be fortunate to ever meet somebody who could meet all three of these goals simultaneously (sexual excitement, romantic love, livability).  In fact, how likely a prospect is that when you start looking at the odds.  Instead, we have to choose which one of these three goals is most important to us.

Jack found that Ennis met the requirements of two of these goals: romance and livability.

Ennis found that Jack met the requirements of two goals, too, but they were: sexual excitement and romance.

Jack lied to Ennis in the Siesta Motel when he said that he never had thoughts about other men, either (when Ennis told Jack that he never had thoughts - sexual fantasies - about another man).  Jack was afraid of losing Ennis if he told him the truth: Jack had rode the bulls while he was in Texas in the rodeo rather than "roll his own."

Jack had lots of sexual liaisons.  Lureen, talking long-distance to Ennis about Jack's death, told Ennis that she didn't know how to contact Ennis because Jack kept all the names and telephone numbers of his friends in his head. 

Of course, Ennis knew this.  "I know what boys like you do in Mexico!" Ennis tells Jack in their May 1983 argument.  "If I ever find out what I don't know, it could get you killed!"

Ennis can't live with Jack because he doesn't trust his own feelings about Jack.  Perhaps that's why (subconsciously, if nothing else), Ennis told Jack on Brokeback Mountain (the evening he came back from herding sheep - after the first night they had sex together in the main camp tent), "This is a one shot deal."

At the bottom of the steps leading up to the apartment over the laundromat, Ennis initiates the kiss he has with Jack in 1967 after not seeing for four summers after they came down from Brokeback Mt.  Later, he tells Jack that if the emotions that lead him to initiate his kiss ever takes hold of them again, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, it could get them killed. 

In fact, Ennis describes these emotions as this "thing" - almost as if it were an alien from Outer Space.

Ennis feels threatened by this "thing" not just because it could get them killed but because he doesn't like letting his emotions get so out of control.  Perhaps he's right.  Such loss of emotional control can lead people do things that they would never do otherwise.  They might do good things.  But they could also do very bad things.

Ennis is not reassured by Jack's schemes for them to live together.  These schemes don't seem to take much account of the well-being of their wives and children.

As Jack said, Brokeback got them "good."  But though Brokeback got him good, Ennis doesn't want to be "done
in" by Brokeback Mt., either.  It's important to him to remain "decent."  It's hard to become the best person you think might be able to be if you let your emotions run wild. 

"There ain't no reins on this one," Ennis tells Jack.  They'll "ride" as far as they can. 

But even if Ennis is willing to "ride" with Jack as far as they can because he loves Jack (despite all his doubts about the wisdom of being overtaken by such powerful emotions), he will try to keep the "thing" under as much control as he can possibly muster.  To do that, he can't live with Jack, ever.     

[ksxks]

Jetzenpolis:  Enjoying reading your perceptions and reasonings about Ennis and Jack.  There is so much going on in the story and movie for us to find meanings in...  Thanks for your thoughts.  I think you have the dynamics between them, and inside themselves, pretty much down.

kathy

[aintfoolin]

Ennis did speak of *this thing grabbing ahold, In the wrong place, at the wrong time* I'm not sure I buy this.  What is it ?,  Is he saying that Jack's gonna attack Ennis sexually in the middle of K-mart at Christmastime? !!! I'm sure Jack could control himself whenever they're together in public.  Ennis makes it sound as if they would somehow succomb to a sexual urge in the street. This *thing* was love, not a living uncontrollable entity unable to be restrained. Sure, he was out of control in the reunion scene, but he did peek to see if anyone was watching before he kissed Jack but it was Ennis who started it. It was his common sense that left that day much to Jack's surprise and Alma found out. It's ironic that Aguirre did'nt tell, neither did Alma and Alma Jr. had her suspicions and Jack was'nt out there shouting from the rooftops about what was going on.  Guess what Ennis , the world did'nt come to an end just because people knew+ even after he knew Alma knew  after Thankgiving ,he  still did'nt stop seeing Jack. Jack could have been more agressive in convincing Ennis that they were NOT Earl and Ray and not let Ennis get away with using this excuse. Certainly they  had  real fears to deal with, but restraint and common sense should have ruled, not fear.   Jack asked Ennis "for how long?" Ennis answers " for as long as we can ride it" In my opinion this was too vague an answer.  %(Jack should've pinned Ennis down to a more definitive time frame before he let it go for his own sake but Jack had his own fear.  Ennis was once again off the hook.  He deserved better than this. ...Just something that bothered me.

[welshwitch]

Maybe "this thing" was less uncontrollable sexual desire and more the whole idea of living with another man, showing at least to some degree that you're gay, then drawing the attention of the wrong people, saying the wrong thing inadvertently to the wrong audience, behaving "wrongly" so as to arouse suspicion?

Every time and place were the worng ones to Ennis after the first reunion - he tried to make Brokeback their only meeting-place and even in the ss they were always in the back of beyond, well away from other people. He was nervous before kissing Jack outside his apartment, even more jumpy when Jack turned up after the divorce, afraid even of being seen with him in normal conversation from someone driving past in the distance.

[jetzenpolis]

Jetzenpolis:  Enjoying reading your perceptions and reasonings about Ennis and Jack.  There is so much going on in the story and movie for us to find meanings in...  Thanks for your thoughts.  I think you have the dynamics between them, and inside themselves, pretty much down.

kathy

Thanks for your interest Kathy (and everyone else's) in what I have to say! 

People who aren't "brokies" are sometimes at a loss about what I find so compelling about the movie.  I'll talk with anyone who wants to talk with me about Brokeback Mountain - story or movie - even if they say they don't know what all the fuss is about.  But a lot of people would rather not talk about it very much.  It's nice to have a forum where you find people who share as much interest in Brokeback Mountain as you do.

For people who don't "get" Brokeback Mountain, I would say that Brokeback Mountain is just one venue (or portal) in which something larger than ourselves reaches into us. 

There are many such venues (portals).  The mind is a room.  In this room, a window can suddenly appear before your eyes in its walls.  Different windows in the walls of the room will appear to different people, at different times.  The view through this window can also be different for each person.  Brokeback Mountain is just one window that can open our minds and illuminate it with new thoughts and emotions, if we let it. 

In fact, if it happens to you, I don't think you can even avoid this illumination.  I couldn't. 

The first time I saw scenes of Ennis & Jack from the movie, in early December 2005 (on a documentary about the making of the movie, on the LOGO cable television channel), something hit me very hard.  I was taken completely by surprise.  I thought the feelings it stirred would go away if I kept my mind on something else.  With my emotions spinning frequently into delirium; often moved to tears by my memory's images of Ennis & Jack; getting by on an average of four hours of sleep per night, I sometimes thought I was at the point where I was "getting over it."  Then, instantly, I was pulled back in.  After about the first month, I just gave in.  Rather than fighting it, I'd ride it out. 

I'd just sit back and watch.  I'd let it take me wherever it was going to go.  (I don't think people should make life-altering decisions at such times, though.  Their emotions are not only very strong, but are often changing quickly, often suddenly, in completely different, unexpected  directions.  It's a time to observe and learn, not a time to act.)

I think that Brokeback Mountain has such a strong effect on some people because it may touch some part of themselves they weren't fully aware of but yet is very important to them.  Brokeback Mountain may raise questions in them about their own lives that they've never thought of before (or have been afraid to answer).

In many ways, our interpretations of Brokeback Mountain are autobiography.  We see Ennis & Jack (and the story's other characters) through the lens of our own problems, questions, aspirations, etc.: interpreting them, of course, through the perspective of our own values and personal history. 

Many of these interpretations come from intuition (a "knowing" without "knowing how you know").  In other words, intuition, here, is the opposite of intellectual thought (in which ideas can be laid out in a specific logical order).  But intuition is not necessarily "emotion," either.

 

[jetzenpolis]

Can Ennis & Jack Control Themselves in Public?

Ennis did speak of *this thing grabbing ahold, In the wrong place, at the wrong time* I'm not sure I buy this.  What is it ?,  Is he saying that Jack's gonna attack Ennis sexually in the middle of K-mart at Christmastime? !!! I'm sure Jack could control himself whenever they're together in public.  Ennis makes it sound as if they would somehow succumb to a sexual urge in the street. This *thing* was love, not a living uncontrollable entity unable to be restrained. Sure, he was out of control in the reunion scene, but he did peek to see if anyone was watching before he kissed Jack but it was Ennis who started it. It was his common sense that left that day much to Jack's surprise and Alma found out...

Ennis did make it sound as if he was worried about just that: this "thing" grabbing ahold of them both in the middle of K-mart at Christmastime!   

Of course, you're right.  Jack could control himself in public!  (In fact, it took years of provocation for Jack to stand up to his father-in-law and let his feelings be known when his father-in-law went to turn the television back on, so Jack's son could watch football and be a "man" according to Jack's father-in-law.) 

Jack jumped at the opportunity to let know Ennis he was with him: when Ennis plunged into his emotions and let himself follow his impulse to kiss Jack.  (Ennis hadn't seen Jack in four years.  He was probably wondering if he'd ever see him again.)

Futhermore, if Ennis had enough "sense" left in him to "take a peek" to see if anyone was watching (before he kissed Jack), Ennis had some control over his emotions, too.

It certainly was love.  (It wasn't just physical pleasure.)

But Ennis was afraid that the emotions he had unleashed were so strong that they had become a force of their own.  He was troubled about what might happen if he abandoned himself to them.

[jetzenpolis]

Alma; Aguirre; Alma Jr. Knew (about Ennis & Jack) but Didn't Do Anything

...and Alma found out. It's ironic that Aguirre didn't tell, neither did Alma and Alma Jr. had her suspicions and Jack wasn't out there shouting from the rooftops about what was going on...

Alma:

Alma never told Ennis that she saw him & Jack kiss each other in 1967, at the bottom of the steps leading up to their apartment over the laundromat, in Riverton, WY.  "She knew what she saw": from the very first day Ennis & Jack saw each other again, the first time "in four summers after Brokeback Mountain."

I wonder if this somehow affected Ennis, adding to his paranoia (or even being the start of it): about how other people might be able to tell that "fellas like us" are homosexual just by looking at him, even if they pass him by on the street and no nothing else about him.


Joe Aguirre:

Look at Joe Aguirre's eyes when he raises his binoculars to them and sees Ennis & Jack "stemming the rose."  They aren't hard.  They aren't cynical.  They aren't angry.  They are "soft," "doe-eyed."  (The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines doe-eyed as: "having large innocent-looking eyes.")

Is it possible that Joe Aguirre might be gay, too?

The final look on his face in the scene with the binoculars seems to be one of "disappointment" not anger.  It's not the sort of reaction you'd expect from a crusty, hard-bitten ranch manager accustomed to telling people off.

I don't think that look in his eyes is the sort of disappointment you'd expect from sheep herd loss or other things that might cut into his profit margin, either.  I don't think it's the sort of disappointment a manager might have in his employees not living up to his expectations.  I think it's something else. 


Alma Jr.:

Alma Jr. may have been able to figure things out on Thanksgiving.  Her mother (Alma) and father (Ennis) had their argument in the kitchen.  She was probably old enough (and perhaps well-educated, enough, in a time, the 1970s, when gay rights were being discussed in the news) to know what was being said in the kitchen. 

How could she, her sister, or Monroe (Alma's second husband, the grocer) help but overhear Alma & Ennis argue?  How could they have not heard Alma loudly say "Jack Twist?...Jack Nasty!"

[jetzenpolis]

Ennis Avoids Being Seen in Public with Jack

...showing at least to some degree that you're gay, then drawing the attention of the wrong people, saying the wrong thing inadvertently to the wrong audience, behaving "wrongly" so as to arouse suspicion?

Every time and place were the wrong ones to Ennis after the first reunion...even more jumpy when Jack turned up after the divorce, afraid even of being seen with him in normal conversation from someone driving past in the distance.

I suspect that Ennis doesn't even want to meet Jack anyplace where they can be seen by others in public after their first reunion in Riverton, WY in 1967.  I agree.  He was afraid of being seen in what could only have been viewed as a normal conversation between himself with Jack by a driver going past on the road in the distance (as if the driver was even likely to notice them at all, much less what they were doing).

I noticed that they don't meet at any of the places Ennis lives in before they go on "fishing" trips.  Instead they meet at some prearranged jumping off point in the wilderness where they can park their trucks (and nobody is likely to see them).

[jetzenpolis]

Ennis's Father: Stud Duck?, Murderer (of Earl)?, Benefactor (Teaches Ennis to Fight Back against K.E.)? Other?

Ennis was a totally "by the rules" guy,  I think this something he got from his father,  until the dope found that curve in the road, that wasn't suppose to be there.   

Anyway, Ennis always played by the rules,  which leads him to Alma after his brother and sister leaves him on his own.  Ennis was content in living his life just like everyone else... 

I find Ennis's attitude toward his father interesting.  Ennis suspects that his father, who laughed while he showed the old dead rancher Earl's body in the ditch to Ennis, when he was 9 years old, and to his older brother, K.E. (11 years old), may have killed Earl, himself.  At least, Ennis says he wouldn't have been surprised if his father had done it.

He also believes that if his father had walked in on Ennis & Jack in their room at the Siesta Motel, he would have killed them, right then and there.  There seems little room for doubt in Ennis's mind about his father's attitude toward homosexuality.

Yet, Ennis doesn't seem angry with him about this.  He doesn't resent his father's homophobia.  At least, he shows no signs of resenting it.  He seems very matter-of-fact when he describes his father to Jack.

He also seems to show some fondness for his father when he tells Jack that his father taught him how to fight - in order to defend himself against his older brother K.E.'s bullying.  His father said he was tired of hearing Ennis ball his head off and didn't want to have to intervene between them, anymore.  But he also told Ennis that if he didn't learn how to defend himself, he would still be having the same problems with K.E. when they were both in their nineties.

This leaves an uncertainty about how much Ennis's father was simply trying to keep Ennis from annoying him with problems and a genuine concern about Ennis.  Apparently, Ennis must regard his father's attitude toward him as the latter.  There seems to be little if any of the resentment in Ennis toward the elder del Mar that Jack feels for his father, the elder Twist.

Obviously, this combination of his father's homophobia and an interest in Ennis's welfare could only exacerbate Ennis's internal conflicts about homosexuality.  It only makes harder for Ennis to look at his homosexuality when he knows that a father whom he loves might kill him because of it.

There are two times that I can think of that Ennis does show some resentment toward his parents.  First, he seems to resent their having driven off the only curve in the 43 miles length of Dead Horse Rd.  Second, he resents that his parents left only $24 (?) in a coffee can for their survivors to keep the family ranch running.

Ennis's father doe not appear to have "dominated" Ennis in the same way that Jack's father attempted to dominate Jack (with Jack's father urinating on his son for being too young to be able to aim properly when he peed in the toilet, for example).  If Ennis's father is a domineering "stud duck," it's a milder version of one (at least until you get to the issue of homosexuality).

[manhattangirl]

This is at his core, Ennis never questions his father's attitude, accepted that his father might have murdered a man.    He carries it with him.  Its a part of him,  Knowingly or unknowingly, take your pick.  The showing of a Earl's mutilated body, has to have affected him deeply enough, because he carried it with him, and that one memory emerged when he met, fell in love, and had sex with Jack.  The battle within himself begins.   Daddy said this is wrong.   

Over all Ennis was a walking emotional zombie when Jack came into his life, and then he became emotionally and sexually alive.  But it is exactly that awareness, that countered everything he was taught to believe.  Ennis never at any time questioned whether his father  was correct,  he took what his father showed him, taught him used it as a reason for not loving himself or Jack enough to enjoy what they had, but hide on Brokeback. 

Ennis blames Jack, it because of you, am like this way.  The painful part is that he was already that way, but couldn't deal with it or accept it.    He wasn't program that way, "queer" causes death.   Daddy show me that.

Ennis lived  his life after falling in love with Jack on the basis of what he was taught to believe.    He never permitted himself  to embrace what he had, but spent the remaining years fighting against it, never scumming to Jack, but Jack doing exactly that,  giving himself to Ennis, on his terms, and Ennis letting him.

[ksxks]

Thanks for your interest Kathy (and everyone else's) in what I have to say! 

People who aren't "brokies" are sometimes at a loss about what I find so compelling about the movie.  I'll talk with anyone who wants to talk with me about Brokeback Mountain - story or movie - even if they say they don't know what all the fuss is about.  But a lot of people would rather not talk about it very much.  It's nice to have a forum where you find people who share as much interest in Brokeback Mountain as you do.

For people who don't "get" Brokeback Mountain, I would say that Brokeback Mountain is just one venue (or portal) in which something larger than ourselves reaches into us. 

There are many such venues (portals).  The mind is a room.  In this room, a window can suddenly appear before your eyes in its walls.  Different windows in the walls of the room will appear to different people, at different times.  The view through this window can also be different for each person.  Brokeback Mountain is just one window that can open our minds and illuminate it with new thoughts and emotions, if we let it. 

In fact, if it happens to you, I don't think you can even avoid this illumination.  I couldn't. 

The first time I saw scenes of Ennis & Jack from the movie, in early December 2005 (on a documentary about the making of the movie, on the LOGO cable television channel), something hit me very hard.  I was taken completely by surprise.  I thought the feelings it stirred would go away if I kept my mind on something else.  With my emotions spinning frequently into delirium; often moved to tears by my memory's images of Ennis & Jack; getting by on an average of four hours of sleep per night, I sometimes thought I was at the point where I was "getting over it."  Then, instantly, I was pulled back in.  After about the first month, I just gave in.  Rather than fighting it, I'd ride it out. 

I'd just sit back and watch.  I'd let it take me wherever it was going to go.  (I don't think people should make life-altering decisions at such times, though.  Their emotions are not only very strong, but are often changing quickly, often suddenly, in completely different, unexpected  directions.  It's a time to observe and learn, not a time to act.)I think that Brokeback Mountain has such a strong effect on some people because it may touch some part of themselves they weren't fully aware of but yet is very important to them.  Brokeback Mountain may raise questions in them about their own lives that they've never thought of before (or have been afraid to answer).

In many ways, our interpretations of Brokeback Mountain are autobiography.  We see Ennis & Jack (and the story's other characters) through the lens of our own problems, questions, aspirations, etc.: interpreting them, of course, through the perspective of our own values and personal history. 

Many of these interpretations come from intuition (a "knowing" without "knowing how you know").  In other words, intuition, here, is the opposite of intellectual thought (in which ideas can be laid out in a specific logical order).  But intuition is not necessarily "emotion," either.

Bolded above -- totally made me laugh.  But it is so true.  We were all a "mess" in some way or another last year, and actually, it's really a good thing we found this forum, or we might have made some messy decisions!

Of course it is so that all our various interpretations are from each of our own windows on life and the world and from our unique places in it.

kathy

[ksxks]

Ennis did speak of *this thing grabbing ahold, In the wrong place, at the wrong time* I'm not sure I buy this.  What is it ?,  Is he saying that Jack's gonna attack Ennis sexually in the middle of K-mart at Christmastime? !!! I'm sure Jack could control himself whenever they're together in public.  Ennis makes it sound as if they would somehow succomb to a sexual urge in the street. This *thing* was love, not a living uncontrollable entity unable to be restrained. Sure, he was out of control in the reunion scene, but he did peek to see if anyone was watching before he kissed Jack but it was Ennis who started it. It was his common sense that left that day much to Jack's surprise and Alma found out. It's ironic that Aguirre did'nt tell, neither did Alma and Alma Jr. had her suspicions and Jack was'nt out there shouting from the rooftops about what was going on.  Guess what Ennis , the world did'nt come to an end just because people knew+ even after he knew Alma knew  after Thankgiving ,he  still did'nt stop seeing Jack. Jack could have been more agressive in convincing Ennis that they were NOT Earl and Ray and not let Ennis get away with using this excuse. Certainly they  had  real fears to deal with, but restraint and common sense should have ruled, not fear.   Jack asked Ennis "for how long?" Ennis answers " for as long as we can ride it" In my opinion this was too vague an answer.  %(Jack should've pinned Ennis down to a more definitive time frame before he let it go for his own sake but Jack had his own fear.  Ennis was once again off the hook.  He deserved better than this. ...Just something that bothered me.

Yeah, bothers me, too, all of us.  But I feel more tolerant of Ennis, just knowing the cramped little world he inhabited.  We all know that Jack is to "blame" also, for going along with how Ennis said it had to be.  Which brings us back to the actual topic here, dominance. 

But I just know that after that last confrontation scene, that things would have turned around, had Jack lived.  By then, they were mature men, and Jack finally let it out how Ennis's holding back had really affected him all this time.  I love to think Ennis was ready to change after that.  Also, the times were a'changing, and even Ennis had to have become more aware of that, that it wouldn't be life-threatening to be in the company of his man...

kathy

[tpe]

Ennis's & Jack's Innate Incompatibility


I admit that my view of Ennis & Jack having an innate incompatibility is certainly a "worst case scenario" for them (at least, for Jack, anyway).  I think there are many times, especially in cases where one lover in a romantic pair is more "in love" than the other, that there is a feeling of insecurity that surrounds their love.  What is the source of this insecurity?  Obviously, the lover who feels insecure would prefer not to feel this way.  But if this feeling of insecurity exists, it won't go away by refusing to look at it.

Obviously, as Annie Proulx points out in her January 19, 2006 KCRW "Bookworm" interview with Michael Silverblatt, she designed the writing of her Short Story (SS) so that its readers would have to fill in its missing details with their own personal history, intuitions, and observations of others using the "hints" (suggestions) provided in her narrative.   Thus, there are many ways to interpret Brokeback Mountain.  The author intended that.

Among her most intriguing comments in the "Bookworm" interview is that Annie Proulx said she felt guided in her writing of Brokeback Mt. (It didn't all come from within her.)  When she saw the movie, she said she felt as if Heath Ledger had reached into her mind and pulled out Ennis del Mar.  (Heath Ledger's Ennis is exactly who she pictured Ennis to be.)

http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/bw/bw060119annie_proulx

I would like to believe that Ennis & Jack could have found someway to live together.  (Please convince me!  I would love to change my mind on this point!)  But in my gut, I feel that Ennis would never agreed to live with Jack under any circumstances.  The question then, for me, becomes what prevents Ennis from agreeing to live with Jack?  Again, I feel it has something to do with a difference in their personalities or their values or their perspective on life.

But Ennis also loves Jack (and Ennis chooses to live with Alma as his life partner, not Jack).  There is some internal conflict with Ennis.  In other words, part of Ennis loves Jack - especially the nineteen year old young Jack on Brokeback Mt. with buck teeth and wavy hair; not the mature Jack with straightened teeth and a mustache "filled out through the hams and shoulders."  Another part of him chooses to live (and continue to live) with Alma, presumably because he finds some degree of compatibility (completion) in living together with her.  Just as Ennis will never voluntarily agree to live with Jack, he'll never initiate a break with Alma.  It's Alma who decides to get a divorce from Ennis (even though both grow more distant from each other over the years).

Ennis, although an introvert (perhaps because he is an introvert) doesn't respond well to any sort of pressure.  Any sort of ultimatum Jack might have issued would have probably backfired.  Skittish already, Ennis makes up his mind and refuses to change it (until the internal pressure building up within him causes to change it: on his own terms, in his own time). 

Remember what happens when Alma brings up the topic of Jack while they do the kitchen dishes (in her & Monroe's house) after Thanksgiving.  Ennis tries to bring Alma's discussion of his "needing" a woman in his life to a close by saying, "Once burned..." (with Alma saying that she and their daughters are worried about his being alone). 

Of course, Alma seems to be seething beneath her cool surface.  There's an anger (a bitterness?) that appears behind her attempt to smile at Ennis's self-deprecating description of his own short rodeo "career" to his daughters at the Thanksgiving dinner table.  It seems to continue in the kitchen.

When Ennis says "Once burned...," it's too much for Alma to hold back, anymore.  She describes the note she attached to Ennis's fishing pole in his tackle box that he never opened (Alma knowing it had never been opened because it was still there 5 years later).  She "knows" what Ennis & Jack were doing on their "fishing" trips, just as much as she knew what she saw when Ennis & Jack kissed each other in their embrace at the bottom of the steps up to their apartment over the laundromat in 1967.  Alma has a "cool head" but she also still has very strong feelings where Ennis is concerned.

The strength of her feelings frighten Ennis.  He is also afraid of his homosexuality being exposed.  Obviously, Alma has opened a Pandora's Box of Ennis's fears about having his homosexuality exposed.  He can never close the lid on that box, again, as far as Alma is concerned. 

He tells Alma she knows "nuthin about it."  (Ennis might also be upset that she says, "Jack Twist?...Jack Nasty!"  She doesn't know his history with Jack.  He's in love with Jack.  Ennis doesn't think his love for Jack is "dirty."  He sent up a prayer to heaven in thanks for his being with Jack, again.) 

Alma says, "don't try to fool me, Ennis!"

After she says, "Jack Twist?...Jack Nasty!" and is about to put into so many words that Ennis & Jack were having sex, Ennis twists her arm to stop her from saying anything more.

Alma yells at him to get out of her house.  Ennis bolts.  He leaves as quickly as he possible can.

Much the same sort of response comes from Ennis in his May 1983 argument with Jack.  Ennis has a standard set of responses to Jack about his refusal to go along with any of Jack's plans for them to live together.  He's afraid that if the "thing" (their kiss at the bottom of the steps leading up to his & Alma's apartment over the laundromat in 1967) ever happens to them again in the wrong place, at the wrong time, they'll be dead; he & Jack have commitments to their wives and children; he can't risk his visitation rights to his daughters; he has to keep his job to pay alimony payments for support of his daughters, etc. 

What happens when the argument heats up (when Ennis decides to "cut fence" and trespass across a boundary he can never cross back from, again, according to Annie Proulx in her Short Story)?  Ennis breaks down and tells Jack "Because of you I'm like this...nothing!"  Then he goes on to say - more of less - that he's "nothing" because he had to give up "all those jobs" to be with Jack.  (I believe he feels he's "nothing" for a different reason.  He doesn't have anyone in his life fulltime.  He's a workaholic: using work as a sedative for his emotional pain just as much as Jack uses alcohol to fend off the loneliness he feels when he's away from Ennis.)

I believe their May 1983 argument does change Ennis for the better.  Ennis, of course, does not come out of his closet by any means.  But he's far less willing to keep up the pretense that he is a heterosexual.  He drops Cassie.  (Of course, he drops her in a way that hurts her.  He refuses to answer any of her letters.)  He also shows vulnerability, again, dropping the frozen mask of falsehood his face seems to have become in his more mature years after his divorce from Alma (except the time when he brings up the topic of people being able to tell that he's homosexual with Jack on a "fishing" trip).

But what difference would it have made anyway for Jack if he tried to press Ennis on the topic?  (Jack always  withdraws rather than continues the disagreement.)  In the end, he had nothing to lose.  Of course, Jack didn't know that at the time.  He was afraid of losing Ennis.  But even he lost Ennis, he would have had more time to find somebody else.

I think Ennis loved Jack for Jack's gentle, loving side.  There is a part of Ennis that is the same as that gentle side of Jack.  But he chose Alma as a life partner because he saw her as having particular qualities that he saw either as lacking or doubtful in himself: cool-headedness, shrewdness (particularly about financial matters), independent-mindedness, a willingness to change course (Alma wasn't afraid of change when she perceived it as an improvement), etc.

To put it in terms of New West vs. Old West, Jack represented the "New West" and Alma represented the "Old West" for Ennis. 

I don't think Ennis was particularly interested in the New West's love of natural beauty, greater acceptance of the need for government regulation, etc. (at least not to the degree that he would ever think of himself, or any side of himself, as being "New West.")  Rather, Ennis was torn being two differing aspects of Old West culture: 1.) the friendly side of it where families and neighbors live together, watching out for each other 2.) the more masculine side of Old West culture in which rugged individuals compete against each other for the acquisition of quick riches or even survival in a no-holds bar laissez-faire capitalist society.  Jack appealed more to this first side of Old West culture; Alma appealed more to the second side, in many (but not all) ways.  Ironically, in many ways, Alma provided a more "masculine" counterpart to Ennis's character in their marriage.

Jack has his complexities of character, too.  While the gentle side of the young Jack most appeals to Ennis as his male lover, there is side of Jack that seeks to step back from an attachment to his own gentle side.  Perhaps this is a result of Jack's own observations of his parents: a gentle, kind mother and a cruel, harsh, negligent father (who may have abused his wife). 

Jack is simultaneously pulled toward Ennis (enough so that he makes plans to live with him) but there is a part of him that is separate from Ennis's own gentle, kind, tender side. 

In the end, Ennis can't live with Jack because he's pulled apart too much by the own contradictions of his own values and perspectives on life.  Ironically, when Jack decides he can no longer continue his "ride" with Ennis, he has found Randall, a man whom Jack realizes in his blank stare that is willing to pursue Jack, someone whom Jack will no longer have to pursue with futility.  All Jack has to do is say, "yes" to Randall.  Jack couldn't believe that something like this could happen to him after all the frustration and disappointment with Ennis.

Thanks jetzenpolis.  You present and analyze the arguments well.  Specifically, your analysis of the Thanksgiving scene and the final confrontation between Ennis and Jack do illi=ustarte your point of view.

I do think that what you say may very well be true, given that there is such a thing as an impossible love.  I think the notion of an impossible love is closest to what you are saying here.  And such as love is indeed the stuff of great tragedy.

So, from what I understand, you believe that they were fated never to be together, because of the inherent contradictions in Ennis's character, but that this did not stop Ennis for loving Jack and being loved in return. 

If this is true, then there is nothing Jack can do to change the situation, and the end was inevitable. 

Whether we agree with this or not, one must accept the plausibility of this scenario.  I would say that perhaps such a scenario is closer to real life: there are many things we cannot reconcile within ourselves, but we continue to go against them.   It is not a matter of choice.  Sometimes, we are fated to love those that can destroy us.


Dominance is therefore not the issue; it was a manifestation of an innate incompatibility.


 

[jetzenpolis]

Jack's View of Ennis, Incompatibility of Jack's Wishes with Ennis's Character

I think the notion of an impossible love is closest to what you are saying here.  And such as love is indeed the stuff of great tragedy.

So, from what I understand, you believe that they were fated never to be together, because of the inherent contradictions in Ennis's character, but that this did not stop Ennis for loving Jack and being loved in return. 

If this is true, then there is nothing Jack can do to change the situation, and the end was inevitable. 

Whether we agree with this or not, one must accept the plausibility of this scenario.  I would say that perhaps such a scenario is closer to real life: there are many things we cannot reconcile within ourselves, but we continue to go against them.   It is not a matter of choice.  Sometimes, we are fated to love those that can destroy us.


Dominance is therefore not the issue; it was a manifestation of an innate incompatibility.


 

1.) "...they were fated never to be together...but this did not stop Ennis from loving Jack and being loved in return."

2.) "...there is nothing Jack can do to change the situation,...the end was inevitable."

3.) "...perhaps such a situation is closer to real life: there are many things we cannot reconcile within ourselves, but we continue to go against them."

4.) "...Sometimes, we are fated to love those that can destroy us."


Yes, I don't think that Ennis can ever agree to live with Jack because of their differences (their perspective on life, their values) not only because Ennis is afraid of having his homosexuality exposed for the world to see.

Ennis is afraid of becoming "known" as homosexual.  This fear shows up in many scenes across the movie.  "What the f*** are you looking at?" Ennis shouts at the man in the street looking in at Ennis stooped over, squatting banging against the wall (believing that he is suffering from dry heaves in a hangover, later to realize that the feeling of having his intestines pulled out yard-by-yard is because he should have never left Jack out of his sight when Jack drove off in his pickup truck when they came down from Brokeback Mt.).  Ennis shouts angrily in order to chase the curious stranger away so he doesn't get a closer look at a bereaved Ennis (who doesn't yet consciously realize that he misses Jack).  He looks to see if anyone is looking before he kisses Jack, four summers later, at the bottom of the steps leading up to his & Alma's apartment over the laundromat.  He becomes incredibly afraid when Alma brings up his "fishing" trips with Jack while they do dishes after Thanksgiving.  Ennis then grabs her arm and twists it in order to prevent her from saying what's on her find, in so many words, after she says, "Jack Twist?...Jack Nasty!."  Then runs out of the house as quickly as he can, his daughters trailing behind saying "Good-bye Daddy!"  As Welshwitch points out, Ennis nervously looks at the vehicle passing by on a highway as he stands outside with Jack and his daughters, Alma, Jr. and Jenny, after Jack drives up from Texas after Ennis's divorce from Alma.  Ennis seems afraid that somehow somebody will figure out what's going on between him and Jack just by seeing them driving by.  (Ennis may have become much more paranoid after arguing with Alma in the kitchen on Thanksgiving.  How did Alma "know" about him & Jack?  Alma always seemed to be able to see through Ennis.  I think he liked that about her.  It made her more of an equal partner in life.  But it probably also frightened him, too.  I think he never knew that Alma saw him kiss Jack in 1967 at the bottom of the apartment steps.  He might have been less anxious about how Alma "knew" if he had known she had seen him and Jack kiss through the apartment screen door.)  Ennis looks absolutely paralyzed in terror when Cassie confronts him while he is "picking at" his pie in the restaurant, with Greyhound bus logo behind them.  (But Ennis, even in his fear at this point, also might be determined that he's never going to have a another fake heterosexual relationship with a woman, again.  He was not going to pretend he was the "marrying kind," as his daughter Alma, Jr. put it - if that was what Alma, Jr. was thinking when she told that to Cassie earlier.)  But Cassie never understood Alma, Jr.'s words that way - even though she told Alma, Jr., "You don't say much.  But you get your point across."  In fact, for Cassie, the thought that Ennis might be homosexual never seems to enter her mind:  "I don't get you, Ennis del Mar!"

It is not a question of Ennis either being "afraid" (of having his homosexuality revealed) or a question of whether there are personal "incompatibles" between himself and Jack that will result in being impossible for him to agree with live with Jack.  It is not an "either/or" question.

Instead, Ennis is both "afraid" (of having his homosexuality exposed) and finds himself "unwilling" (consciously or unconsciously) to live with Jack because of their differences in perspectives, values, etc.

Your words are so eloquently put, tpe!  You sum up what I have to say very succinctly.

Yes, there are Ennis's contradictions in character: among these are the inevitable contradictions between 1.) sexual arousal; 2.) romantic passion; 3.) and living together: as three different goals in somebody's sexual life.  Thus, because they are "different" in purpose, these three different goals can potentially clash or "contradict" with each other, if and when they come to cross-purposes.       These three different "contradictions" are inherent within all of us, as part of our sexual lives.

If Ennis did agree to live with Jack, it would destroy that part of Ennis's character that Jack was most in love with.  Perhaps my favorite scene with Jack is when he is with Ennis, telling him, at first, that he wondered if what happened at the bottom of the steps to the apartment over the laundromat would happen when he came up to Riverton, WY from Texas.  Then Jack turns suddenly so his face is next to Ennis's ears, that says, no, that wasn't true: he knew what would happen when they got together, again.  At that moment, Jack seems to be in love with Ennis and the whole world.

I think what Jack saw in Ennis, at his best, was a "universal" love (not just the more limited love for a single person in the high emotions of romantic passion).  Ennis opened a window in Jack's mind to a larger view of the world.  But Jack became desperate for Ennis's company (his wish to live together).  Jack was afraid that window would close without having Ennis in his presence.

But if Ennis had done what Jack wished, Ennis would have destroyed the part of himself that Jack loved most.  Again, Jack seems willing to abandon his wife, Lureen, and his son, Bobby, at a moment's notice.  (Of course, Jack stays in his marriage throughout his years of waiting for Ennis.  He doesn't get a divorce and then assume a promiscuous life of "one-night stands" while waiting for Ennis, as a single gay man.  Of course, Jack probably was homosexually promiscuous while he was married to Lureen - at least, until he met Randall.)

Ennis, at least a part of him, is determined to stay "decent" by doing what he thinks is "right."  He doesn't follow wild passion with Jack by leaving his wife, Alma, and their daughters, Alma, Jr. and Jenny, behind.  (Ennis's affection for his daughters is obvious.  In the middle of an argument with Alma about her going to work or her staying home to have supper together, Ennis stops his raging  long enough - before he goes back to kicking the white wood-plank wall of the building behind him - to suddenly look down at his daughters on the swing and ask them, very calmly, with the interest of a devoted father, "Do you need a push?"  Years later, Ennis drops off a teenage Alma, Jr. at Alma's and Monroe's house - who has just asked Ennis if she can move in with him because she views her mother, Alma, as being too restrictive.  Ennis carefully, fondly, perhaps wistfully waits and watches to make sure his daughter gets in through the front door, safely.)

The somber, beautiful colors of the mountains and the wilderness (lots of deep blues mixed with dark greens, sometimes tans), as the movie's director, Ang Lee films them, symbolizes (for me) the tragedy of Jack's predicament: caught between loving a man whom if Jacks's greatest wish was fulfilled would destroy the very thing he seeks most in life.

[manhattangirl]

The incompatibility apparently didn't keep Ennis from releasing Jack.   I wonder,   I don't know about that.  But going on along on the premise stated here, wouldn't that make Ennis morally dishonest, a hypocrite and Jack his victim?    He loses the " moral high ground", every time he sleeps with Jack, who is he kidding?

Or am I wrong here?

[welshwitch]

Each is locked in who and what he is. Neither can change. Neither can change the other. Neither is stronger than the other or wants to live without the other. It's this series of impossibilities that makes it a tragedy.

[tpe]

Interesting points here.

I have to think about what manhattangirl said here.  Was it openly dishonest, or a simple compartmentalization of both mind and heart that is so common with many of us?

Also, s the incompatibility simply imagined?  Or did it ever occur to them that they were incompatible?  Perhaps the closest scene that seems to corraborate this would be the fight by the stream...

[aintfoolin]

I think they were more alike than different where it counted. Their relationship would'nt have lasted so long if there was no feelings of compatability. The only thing I see inompatible is a diference in rationalization of ideals.  They are two simple country boys who had similiar backgrounds and bad role models for fathers.

[ksxks]

As you said, aintfoolin -- their backgrounds were similar, and that at least is some basis for compatibility.  They were very different personalities, just because they were -- whatever it is that gives us our personalities.  But I don't think they would have seen themselves as incompatible.  Just that the situation, to Ennis, was too fraught to really consider that it could be some kind of life reallity for him.  He would have come to believe it possible and desirable later, I believe, but then it was too late.

Even the argument by the stream, as you mentioned, Thomas, was just haggling the fine points.  We don't want to be with someone who thinks exactly the same as us.  Each of them brought to the other new perspectives, and some of them would have gelled nicely, and some of them wouldn't have.

I think Ennis's "values" were confused, and mostly based on fear of looking too far outside his little world.

kathy

[manhattangirl]

They fulfill that part of themselves in one another that was missing.   Separately they were miserable, leading empty lives,  Ennis's only goal to make money for child support,  Jack's only goal, well, he was a saleman, taking his rodeo flash and dash to the farm machine business.  These were simple men.  Neither of them glamorous or worldly.   Both were just awkward country boys, I don't think they would have classified as cowboys, but the wore the clothes, they try to be near the cowboy way of life as much as they could, working on a ranch, riding the rodeo circuit.   

They both had dreams, that could never be reached.  But through out all of it, they loved each other.  That's the  one dream that could have been possible if fear hadn't control them.  And maybe, just maybe their dream of owning something of their own could have been a reality. 

But the fear of discovery, the fear of love, the fear their desires, the fear of each other, losing each other, and of themselves even thinking such a thing could be possible, was what I think was the dominating factor,  Ennis believe it, Jack succumb to his belief.  Through the years the one thing that was true, and they desperately tried to hold on to is each other, and nearly destroyed the little they did have.

[tpe]

As you said, aintfoolin -- their backgrounds were similar, and that at least is some basis for compatibility.  They were very different personalities, just because they were -- whatever it is that gives us our personalities.  But I don't think they would have seen themselves as incompatible.  Just that the situation, to Ennis, was too fraught to really consider that it could be some kind of life reallity for him.  He would have come to believe it possible and desirable later, I believe, but then it was too late.

Even the argument by the stream, as you mentioned, Thomas, was just haggling the fine points.  We don't want to be with someone who thinks exactly the same as us.  Each of them brought to the other new perspectives, and some of them would have gelled nicely, and some of them wouldn't have.

I think Ennis's "values" were confused, and mostly based on fear of looking too far outside his little world.

kathy

I do believe that they appreciated each other's prespectives, in spite of all the conflict and heart-aches.

And I do think sometimes that for Ennis, it was not a conscious desire to dominate; rather, as you said kathy, it was more a confusion that seemed to put out mixed signals. 

Ennis seemed to be more afraid than anything else.  His seeming to dominate certain issues perhaps arises from a fear that disallowed him to see things any other way.  And Jack probably understood this well, which may be why we see him acquiese all too often.

[tpe]

They both had dreams, that could never be reached.  But through out all of it, they loved each other.  That's the  one dream that could have been possible if fear hadn't control them.  And maybe, just maybe their dream of owning something of their own could have been a reality. 

Whatever our opinions on the issue of dominance, I think all of us agree that their love was what anchored them, and informed their actions, both good or bad.

[jetzenpolis]

Ennis & Jack Loved Each Other

Whatever our opinions on the issue of dominance, I think all of us agree that their love was what anchored them, and informed their actions, both good or bad.

Ennis & Jack did love each other.  Love is what "anchored" them.  For good or bad, it anchored them to each other.  Love, not dominance, was the fundamental emotion in their bond to each other.

Ennis "knew" that he loved Jack, for a long time.  Unfortunately, he did not realize this until about a year after they came down from Brokeback Mt.  By then, it was "too late."  They were both married and had children.

That's what Ennis tells Jack at the Siesta Motel four years later, in 1967.  (When Jack left Signal, Wyoming in his pickup truck, after they came down from Brokeback Mt. in 1963, Ennis suddenly feels sick.  It's "as if his intestines were being pulled out yard-by-yard."  He turns into the doorway of a shed he's walking by, stoops, squats, and begans hitting the wall with his fist.  He thought he had the dry heaves from a hangover.  He doesn't feel better for a long time afterwards, according to Annie Proulx in her Short Story.)  When Jack is with him in the Siesta Motel, Ennis tells him he should have never left him "outta his sight."

Jack may never have fully known (consciously) that what he felt for Ennis was love.  Annie Proulx describes Jack's favorite memory of Ennis in her Short Story: holding Jack from behind on Brokeback Mt. in front of the campfire, rocking him into a trance, humming a song to Jack...satisfying a "sexless" hunger in Jack.  As the story's narrator, Annie Proulx says that Jack was never fully conscious of what he felt for Ennis (that satisfied his "sexless" hunger).

So, when we see Ennis & Jack on Brokeback Mt. in 1963, neither of them is fully conscious of what they feel for each other.  They - two young men in rural Wyoming in the homophobic America of the early 1960s - have no idea of what their possibilities in life could be.  They are two young men who haven't realized they've fallen in love with each other.

After four years apart, Jack writes a general delivery postcard to Ennis in Riverton, Wyoming.  (Perhaps not having been able to get Ennis's full address, he addresses it simply to "general delivery".  Jack could have spent a lot of time tracking Ennis down to find out where he was living.  Or, did Jack know from Ennis's descriptions to him on Brokeback Mt. in 1963 of his future plans for marriage to his then fiancé, Alma, that Ennis would be living in Riverton?)  Ennis replies on a blank postcard to Jack in Texas, "You bet."

Ennis, as he later tells Jack at the Siesta Motel (in the Short Story), wondered if Jack didn't try to contact him since Brokeback Mt. because he was still angry about Ennis hitting him the last day they were on Brokeback Mt.  (Did Ennis ever think of writing a letter to Jack and send it in care of his parents, whom Jack had told him lived in Lightning Flat, WY?) 

Unknown to Ennis, Jack reapplied for his job at Brokeback Mt., the following summer.  When the ranch manager, Joe Aguirre, turns Jack down in the ranch office trailer, Jack asks if Ennis del Mar has been around.  Obviously, Jack was still interested in Ennis.

Even before that, Jack asked Ennis if he might come back to herd on Brokeback Mt. the next summer when they came down to Signal, in 1963, from herding.  (This was the same day Ennis had hit Jack with his surprise punch.  Jack must have already "gotten over" Ennis's blow, if he ever felt there was ever anything he had to "get over with" - as far as his wanting to be with Ennis was concerned.)  On that day, before Jack leaves in his pickup truck to his parents' ranch in Lightning Flat, WY, Ennis says that he's going to get married to Alma.  Then in parting, says, "see you around.")  Ennis seems to have discounted (or forgotten) the significance of Jack's question - or hint - that he'd like to be with Ennis, again, next summer, in 1964, on Brokeback Mt.

Ennis is twitching with excitement, jumpy in excited anticipation, while he waits for Jack to come to Riverton, WY, in 1967.  Alma, probably curious, proposes that they all go out to a restaurant.  Ennis replies that Jack is not the "restaurant type."

(In the Short Story, when Ennis says Jack is not the restaurant "type," Annie Proulx describes Ennis as thinking, while he says this to Alma, of the cans of beans sitting on a log with dirty spoons sticking out of them at their camp on Brokeback Mt.  This image recurs at the end of the Short Story, in Ennis's dreams of Jack, taking greater prominence in the dreams that go bad.  The pillows become wet with Ennis's tears; the sheets of Ennis's bed remain dry on those difficult nights.)

Ennis smiles the widest, most heartfelt grin he probably smiles in the whole movie when he realizes that Jack has arrived in his pickup truck beneath the apartment over the laundromat.  (Ennis is probably more deeply emotional in a happy way in this scene than he is at any other point in the movie.)

At the top of the steps to the apartment over the laundromat, Ennis greets Jack, "Jack fu**in' Twist!" (using the profanity to express disbelief that Jack is once again before his eyes).  They embrace.  Ennis pulls back, looks around.  Then he initiates a kiss with Jack, a sudden release of all his pent-up feelings for Jack that Jack readily responds to (almost with tears in his eyes: full of grief for their years apart; at the same time, happy to be with Ennis, again).  Ennis, frightened by the strength of the emotions that overwhelm them both, calls their emotions at this moment "this thing."  He fears it will stalk them and return at some impropitious, unfortunate time that will put them in danger from anti-homosexual assailants.

In the end, at the beginning of their final argument in May 1983 on the barren shores of the mountain lake, you can see Ennis acting in dominating ways that are common to the movie's "stud ducks": L.D. Newsome (Lureen's father), John C. Twist (Jack's father), Joe Aguirre.  Ennis rants loudly about what he sees as Jack's character flaws, bad behavior, etc.  (He doesn't seem to know how to speak to Jack in a soft voice - with any understanding.  Or, he chooses not to because he sees his rants as a useful tactic to get Jack to stay on a "short leash": seeing each other a couple of times of year for what Jack calls a "f***" in a high altitude place, far away, at a cold time of year.  Jack says he'd rather go someplace warm.  When he suggests Mexico, Ennis attacks, saying he knows what "boys like you" Jack go to Mexico for.)

Here, Ennis is carefully watching how Jack responds during this argument.  He continuously "sneaks peeks" at Jack, in fact, as he rants at him. 

This is something you can also see L.D. Newsome do when he gets up, again, to turn the television back on after Jack has shut it off before their Thanksgiving meal that took Lureen three hours to make.  L.D. Newsome, Jack's father-in-law is very obvious in his observations of Jack's response to his latest provocation of his son-in-law.  He's waiting to see how Jack reacts before he decides what move he'll make next against Jack, seeking to enforce (reassure himself of?) his position as "stud duck of the pond." 

John C. Twist does the same with Ennis.  Ennis comes for Jack's ashes at Jack's parents ranch in Lightning Flat, WY.  Jack's father is carefully watching Ennis as he tells Ennis about Jack's plans for the ranch.  Jack, the last time he visited his parents (after his May 1983 argument with Ennis) no longer talked about bringing Ennis to his parents' ranch as his ranch partner.  Jack changed his plans.  He was planning to bring up a ranch neighbor from Texas.

Finally, Joe Aguirre, carefully "sizes up" his young ranch hand prospects, Ennis & Jack, before he hires them.  He does this many times when he speaks to them on other occasions.  (He probably does with everyone else, too.)

But Ennis is no longer looking to see how Jack reacts after Jack asks Ennis bitterly, "How do I quit you?"  Instead, Ennis loses control of himself completely (perhaps for the first time since they kissed at the bottom of the steps to the apartment over the laundromat). 

Instead of slyly, subtly watching to see what Jack does, Ennis breaks down, crying ("because of you, I'm this way...nothing!").  He hold his hands over his face, reduced to a crumpled, broken rag doll of a human being, torn apart by his emotions of grief.  He tries to prevent the world from seeing him.  (He's not trying to watch to see what Jack does anymore).  He fumbles as he tries to keep his hands over his eyes while also wiping away the tears.

Any effort to dominate the situation is completely stripped away.  I think that men, especially, will look away, often into the distance, when they decide to tell each other the truth (talking about what's on their minds).  They simply concentrate on what's on their minds, letting the words pour out intuitively.  There's no strategy, no effort to match words to a particular effect you wish to see your words have upon others.  (A "stud duck" would naturally be interested in the impact his words are having upon others in his efforts to exert "control" over them, in order to manipulate them toward fulfilling some purpose the stud duck has for them.)

Ennis looks off into the distance on Brokeback Mt., when after the first night they have sex together in the main camp, he returns from herding the next evening, finds Jack, and tells him this is a "One shot deal..."  (Ennis goes on to claim, "I ain't no queer."  Jack responds, "Me neither," with a softness, perhaps even something of a hesitation in his voice and a sad melancholy in his eyes that seems to declare that Jack knows what he's just said is a lie.) 

It's not always that way, though.  Ennis is also being honest about his feelings when they are camping together next to the stream at some point after Ennis's divorce: Ennis turns to Jack, looks at him, and asks if Jack ever wonders if people can tell who "fellas like us are," just by looking at them, not knowing anything else about them. 

When Ennis breaks down and cries, in torment and grief during their May 1983 argument, he does attempt to resist, at first, when Jack rushes to embrace his forlorn lover, desperate in his agony, into the comfort of his arms.  Ennis breaks free.  Jack, refusing to give up, comes back, again, embracing Ennis, telling him everything will be alright.  (Does Jack decide at this point he must abandon Ennis, for Ennis's own good?)

Ennis's collapse shows that love, not a wish to dominate, is his primary emotion toward Jack.

[tpe]

In the end, at the beginning of their final argument in May 1983 on the barren shores of the mountain lake, you can see Ennis acting in dominating ways that are common to the movie's "stud ducks": L.D. Newsome (Lureen's father), John C. Twist (Jack's father), Joe Aguirre.  Ennis rants loudly about what he sees as Jack's character flaws, bad behavior, etc.  (He doesn't seem to know how to speak to Jack in a soft voice - with any understanding.  Or, he chooses not to because he sees his rants as a useful tactic to get Jack to stay on a "short leash": seeing each other a couple of times of year for what Jack calls a "f***" in a high altitude place, far away, at a cold time of year.  Jack says he'd rather go someplace warm.  When he suggests Mexico, Ennis attacks, saying he knows what "boys like you" Jack go to Mexico for.)

Here, Ennis is carefully watching how Jack responds during this argument.  He continuously "sneaks peeks" at Jack, in fact, as he rants at him. 

This is something you can also see L.D. Newsome do when he gets up, again, to turn the television back on after Jack has shut it off before their Thanksgiving meal that took Lureen three hours to make.  L.D. Newsome, Jack's father-in-law is very obvious in his observations of Jack's response to his latest provocation of his son-in-law.  He's waiting to see how Jack reacts before he decides what move he'll make next against Jack, seeking to enforce (reassure himself of?) his position as "stud duck of the pond." 

John C. Twist does the same with Ennis.  Ennis comes for Jack's ashes at Jack's parents ranch in Lightning Flat, WY.  Jack's father is carefully watching Ennis as he tells Ennis about Jack's plans for the ranch.  Jack, the last time he visited his parents (after his May 1983 argument with Ennis) no longer talked about bringing Ennis to his parents' ranch as his ranch partner.  Jack changed his plans.  He was planning to bring up a ranch neighbor from Texas.

Finally, Joe Aguirre, carefully "sizes up" his young ranch hand prospects, Ennis & Jack, before he hires them.  He does this many times when he speaks to them on other occasions.  (He probably does with everyone else, too.)

But Ennis is no longer looking to see how Jack reacts after Jack asks Ennis bitterly, "How do I quit you?"  Instead, Ennis loses control of himself completely (perhaps for the first time since they kissed at the bottom of the steps to the apartment over the laundromat). 

Instead of slyly, subtly watching to see what Jack does, Ennis breaks down, crying ("because of you, I'm this way...nothing!").  He hold his hands over his face, reduced to a crumpled, broken rag doll of a human being, torn apart by his emotions of grief.  He tries to prevent the world from seeing him.  (He's not trying to watch to see what Jack does anymore).  He fumbles as he tries to keep his hands over his eyes while also wiping away the tears.

Any effort to dominate the situation is completely stripped away.  I think that men, especially, will look away, often into the distance, when they decide to tell each other the truth (talking about what's on their minds).  They simply concentrate on what's on their minds, letting the words pour out intuitively.  There's no strategy, no effort to match words to a particular effect you wish to see your words have upon others.  (A "stud duck" would naturally be interested in the impact his words are having upon others in his efforts to exert "control" over them, in order to manipulate them toward fulfilling some purpose the stud duck has for them.)

Ennis looks off into the distance on Brokeback Mt., when after the first night they have sex together in the main camp, he returns from herding the next evening, finds Jack, and tells him this is a "One shot deal..."  (Ennis goes on to claim, "I ain't no queer."  Jack responds, "Me neither," with a softness, perhaps even something of a hesitation in his voice and a sad melancholy in his eyes that seems to declare that Jack knows what he's just said is a lie.) 

It's not always that way, though.  Ennis is also being honest about his feelings when they are camping together next to the stream at some point after Ennis's divorce: Ennis turns to Jack, looks at him, and asks if Jack ever wonders if people can tell who "fellas like us are," just by looking at them, not knowing anything else about them. 

When Ennis breaks down and cries, in torment and grief during their May 1983 argument, he does attempt to resist, at first, when Jack rushes to embrace his forlorn lover, desperate in his agony, into the comfort of his arms.  Ennis breaks free.  Jack, refusing to give up, comes back, again, embracing Ennis, telling him everything will be alright.  (Does Jack decide at this point he must abandon Ennis, for Ennis's own good?)

Ennis's collapse shows that love, not a wish to dominate, is his primary emotion toward Jack.

Although the confrontation scene was a contest of wills and an exchange of recriminations, I do think that Ennis never consciously intended to impose his will on Jack.  As I had noted in earlier posts, Ennis was probably convinced that his way of doing things was the only way to preserve their love from the hostility of society as they knew it.

I think Ennis finally collapsing shows that his attempt to dominate HIS OWN emotions about hios love for Jack proved futile.  As much as he wanted to deny his love for another man, he could not bring himself to repudiate it.  "I can't stand it anymore, Jack" indicates that the power struggle was as much inside Ennis as it was between the two of them.