Andrew,your posts are always wisely written,and in this sense,your theory of the glass half full or half empty illustrates very well this.We can declare that Ennis could be something very similar to be "happy" because he has managed to live with his memories of the past and with some new ways of being learned from these past experiences.Even we could say that he has found a new mother,somebody who cares for him,in Jack's Ma figure and that he has learn to be closer to his daughters.They say that no past's experiences can be really useful if we aren't able to learn from them in our present times.And Ennis did,paying a great and painful bill for learn,but he did...
Nevertheless,the basis of all this,of this possibility of changing his life and begin from zero-as we say here-,comes from a tragic and irremediable situation;the death of the person he has loved the most in his life.Can we really replace the possible reality of having been happy,of having been HIMSELF,for the fact of having two shirts as an indelible souvenir of this now impossible reality?Can we really replace all the moments they had could live together and that he mainly denied,for the fact of being closer to his daughters,as a substitutive for this person?Can we really replace all the beautiful souvenirs he has now,of these lived moments,of what has been,for the bitter reality of remembering what could have been and never was,and never will be?.Maybe I see the bottle half empty,but it's a poor remains,IMO.
Alicia, you are too kind to me. I am far from wise.
As I said, whatever Ennis had, no matter what joy he found with the two shirts, it was only half of something when missing Jack.
I did not say Ennis had great joy. In fact, I feel his sorrow all the more, for the joy that he lost.
I felt an immediate connection with the quote from Kahlil Gibran when I heard it, and it applies here as well.
"The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain."
I said the sorrows of Ennis and Jack are not comparable because they are apples and oranges. They are fundamentally different in their nature.
Ennis' joy is found in knowing he was loved, deeply and for so long, all this time, while he was always yearning for love without knowing it, in that stoic independent cowboy spirit. The joy and the sorrow are mixed together in that supreme moment when he discovered the shirts. They are inseparable. It was the genius of Heath to convey so much emotion, so much abstract understanding of the human spirit in that one moment reaching out to the sleeve of the shirt as he discovered the two shirts with his own blood stain still on them.
Jack's joy is found in the love they shared when they were together, but his sorrow is never having enough.
Ennis' love lost was compensated with love found, though in the opposite order to bring happiness.
Jack's love denied was compensated with the hope of perhaps, one day. This was shattered each time they parted, and especially after the last confrontation, and he watched Ennis driving off.
Ennis' sorrow and Jack's sorrow are like two needles in different orientation. One lasts a lifetime with a numbing pain under the skin, while the other is a deep stabbing pain that stuck momentary but leaves lasting scars. Once Jack died, the stabbing pain may have gone away, but it lived on in Ennis' guilt and regret.
As I said, we can look at the life of Ennis as half full or half empty at any moment. The sorrow is found when focusing on the emptiness; the joy is found when focusing on the fullness of what was, what is, and what will be. And no matter how we look at it, it was a half life, missing Jack.
Half empty or half full, it is love denied all because of bigotry and fear.
