Just to point out, that is not my theory, that is just something I encountered in a psychology class I took. I didn't mean to say Ennis felt that way or this way at that very young age. That is only speculation.
No worries, athena. I wasn't putting words in your mouth. I was only saying sometimes we put too much faith and trust in people who are supposedly professionals, when in fact all they have are theories. When they present their theories as fact, without caveat, we would be foolish to take them too seriously. I try to stay away from speculations most of the time.
As for the other part, I don't know what feelings Ennis had at age nine. But I see what you are saying about him yearning for his fathers affections and attention when he was a child. It is normal for young children, both boys and girls to want to please their parents at that age, even though their parents may be cruel. So it's fair to say that nine year old Ennis wanted his father to like him. But different people change as they get older, and I believe by the time his father died, he no longer cared about his father. The way he talks about him when he tells Jack the story of Earl and Rich is one of resentment. I believe as Ennis grew up, his eyes opened up more and more to this cruel world he was thrown into, and that's why he built that wall to protect himself, like I said. There is no way that Ennis was capable of the hate and violence his father was capable of. The story of Earl and Rich terrified and saddened him deeply. I could never ever imagine Ennis torturing and or killing anyone. He's a very gentle soul. And gentle souls often build that exterior iron gate around themselves.
I agree with the bold part 100%. I think we need to separate the two time periods, Ennis as a nine-year-old after witnessing the murder, and Ennis as a nineteen-year-old when he met Jack, and then the twenty-something at the reunion when he retold the story. As you said, people evolve over time.
As a child, Ennis had no way of judging his father as cruel and filled with hatred. He simply accepted whatever was done, and was terrified.
As a teenager, he knew by that time that what his father did was cruel and fundamentally wrong, but he also internalized the homophobia because that's what society at that time was for him. He didn't like that part of his father, and would never emulate that part of him, but because society condoned homophobia, his father was still "acceptable" as his idol. The way he talked to Jack about his father showed that, in my opinion, there was a mixture of resentment and admiration, as most sons feel for their fathers. The older we get, the more clearly we see our parents as human beings with faults and all. In this case, Ennis learned to follow his father as a cowboy/ranch hand, but resented his cruelty. But without Jack, Ennis would never consciously disobey social customs. He was one who follow rules. Once he met Jack on the mountain that summer of '63, he looked at authority figures with new eyes, as can be seen in the subtle interactions between Ennis and Joe Aquierre. In the trailer, he was all respectful and subdued, while Jack was standing tall. After they came down the mountain, Ennis was strutting as much as Jack, spitting and turning his back on the man who thought 'em ranch hands were all no good.
As the twenty-something married man with children, I think Ennis understood the role of fatherhood better, and was more than willing to knock the old man off the pedestal. Like he said in the hotel, the old man would probably come in with the tire iron, but I'd like to think that Ennis at that point would be ready to defend himself, and stand up to the old man, no matter what.
Jack was the soul mate that helped Ennis find liberation.
