Topic: Did Jack finally give up on Ennis? - possible spoilers

[tpe]

This discussion about the shirts is so sad....but I totally agree that Jack would have taken them out every time he went up to Lightning Flat and held them, probably in tears. One thing though - maybe as well as making him sad because it was the only part of Ennis he could hold whenever he wanted to (when he was at his folks anyway), the shirts gave him some comfort too, because they were a constant reminder of Brokeback and what they'd shared up there. Sort of like a reassurance, whenever he had doubts about their relationship.

In addition, if you believe that Jack had some understanding of why Ennis was angry and upset at leaving Brokeback early, then the shirts would remind him of how Ennis felt about him. In the short story, at least, he knew after the reunion how Ennis had felt about their parting, so I'm sure he gained comfort from seeing the shirts and knowing that the blood on them had been shed because of the pain of parting.I'll stop rambling now.

Wow! That wasn't rambling.....that's an excellent point and a comforting thought.   NoReins.

I agree with Rosie. Thanks, NoReins.

[tpe]

Does "giving up" necessarily mean giving up forever?

[welshwitch]

It may just mean giving up on some things - giving up on the idea of Ennis ever agreeing to live with him doesn't mean the same as giving up on Ennis or on loving him. You can adjust to the knowledge that someone is never going to do/be what you want without its necessarily changing your feelings for him/her.

[MississaugaRed]

Does "giving up" necessarily mean giving up forever?

I like to think not, tpe.   Everyone can feel momentarily defeated.  But there is nothing to stop one from getting back up with renewed determination, if the incentive is strong enough.

What could be a stronger incentive than a once-in-a-lifetime love? 

[tpe]

I like to think not, tpe.   Everyone can feel momentarily defeated.  But there is nothing to stop one from getting back up with renewed determination, if the incentive is strong enough.

What could be a stronger incentive than a once-in-a-lifetime love? 

I hope so, MississaugaRed.  I hope so.  I began to harbor other thoughts this morning, thinking about this...

[welshwitch]

While Enn is was fairly set before he met Jack, i see Jack as much less formed in some ways. During the course of the story he grew up, and growing up means realising what you're not going to achieve. Jack I think realises that to love with Ennis and share that sweet life is a fantasy not capable of achievement, but love can adapt and change and mutate, and his seems strong enough to do that.

[tpe]

While Enn is was fairly set before he met Jack, i see Jack as much less formed in some ways. During the course of the story he grew up, and growing up means realising what you're not going to achieve. Jack I think realises that to love with Ennis and share that sweet life is a fantasy not capable of achievement, but love can adapt and change and mutate, and his seems strong enough to do that.

I feel the same way most of the time.  Sometimes, the thought of "forever" does sink in and I begin to be afraid...

[MississaugaRed]

I like to think not, tpe.   Everyone can feel momentarily defeated.  But there is nothing to stop one from getting back up with renewed determination, if the incentive is strong enough.

What could be a stronger incentive than a once-in-a-lifetime love? 

I hope so, MississaugaRed.  I hope so.  I began to harbor other thoughts this morning, thinking about this...

That's understandable, tpe.     Hard not to harbour those feelings, in the face of all that emotion, the outcome forever undecided. 

Do you think maybe that's what Jack would have gone through?  Moments of doubt when feeling low ... but hope still there quiet, ready to shut the door on those doubts before they can come in to stay permanent?  I like to think Jack would find have found a way past the doubts again ...

[tpe]

I like to think not, tpe.   Everyone can feel momentarily defeated.  But there is nothing to stop one from getting back up with renewed determination, if the incentive is strong enough.

What could be a stronger incentive than a once-in-a-lifetime love? 

I hope so, MississaugaRed.  I hope so.  I began to harbor other thoughts this morning, thinking about this...

That's understandable, tpe.     Hard not to harbour those feelings, in the face of all that emotion, the outcome forever undecided. 

Do you think maybe that's what Jack would have gone through?  Moments of doubt when feeling low ... but hope still there quiet, ready to shut the door on those doubts before they can come in to stay permanent?  I like to think Jack would find have found a way past the doubts again ...

Yes, I do feel that the cloud of doubt hung heavily on Jack during the final years.  I do think that Ennis also began to doubt where his love for Jack was leading him.  Not so sure about this, but I guess, Jack's death must have wiped all of Ennis's doubt away -- as we know that death wiped Jack away...

[welshwitch]

And he could "know" that Jack would never now give up on him, leaving him free to mourn a lost love but also to know that he could go on loving someone who would never endanger him, never make demands, neve change.r

[Rosie]

I like to think not, tpe.   Everyone can feel momentarily defeated.  But there is nothing to stop one from getting back up with renewed determination, if the incentive is strong enough.

What could be a stronger incentive than a once-in-a-lifetime love? 

I hope so, MississaugaRed.  I hope so.  I began to harbor other thoughts this morning, thinking about this...

That's understandable, tpe.     Hard not to harbour those feelings, in the face of all that emotion, the outcome forever undecided. 

Do you think maybe that's what Jack would have gone through?  Moments of doubt when feeling low ... but hope still there quiet, ready to shut the door on those doubts before they can come in to stay permanent?  I like to think Jack would find have found a way past the doubts again ...

Yes, I do feel that the cloud of doubt hung heavily on Jack during the final years.  I do think that Ennis also began to doubt where his love for Jack was leading him.  Not so sure about this, but I guess, Jack's death must have wiped all of Ennis's doubt away -- as we know that death wiped Jack away...

tpe,
 You know that I think that Jack did have doubts about where this reltionship and his life were going and was beginning to think about changing the relationship or ending it before that last meeting. But at that last meeting do you still think that Jack gave up on his relationship with Ennis for Ennis' sake? Not gave up on his love for Ennis but gave up the relationship? Do you ever think that maybe Jack might have thought that Ennis saying that he couldn't stand it, and knowing that Ennis now knew that Jack couldn't stand it either might have given Jack pause to see what was going to happen? Not think this all the time but just sometimes - or never? I just wondered what you meant by "I began to harbor other thoughts this morning" I just wondered if you ever had different interpretations depending on your mood like I do.  Sorry if I'm being too nosey, but you know how I just love to discuss this question..

[welshwitch]

I sometimes see/read the thing differently depending on my mood, or even depending on which part of my past I'm thinking about - you tend to see people in the light of your own experiences and see yourself as closer to Ennis or Jack - i see myself as more like Jack, and I've been in a relationship where the Ennis half was never going to change so that I had to come to terms with that. In the end I gave up on the relationship, because it wasn;t worth the pain it was causing me, and because the othr person involved didn;t thin k it was wirth the misert it caused either. So I see Jack as giving up to some extent, but not giving up, not being able to give up, loving Ennis. You can't just switch off love, specially after many years when it's become  part of who you are and in a sense when you and the other person have become a part of each other.

[tpe]

tpe,
 You know that I think that Jack did have doubts about where this reltionship and his life were going and was beginning to think about changing the relationship or ending it before that last meeting. But at that last meeting do you still think that Jack gave up on his relationship with Ennis for Ennis' sake? Not gave up on his love for Ennis but gave up the relationship? Do you ever think that maybe Jack might have thought that Ennis saying that he couldn't stand it, and knowing that Ennis now knew that Jack couldn't stand it either might have given Jack pause to see what was going to happen? Not think this all the time but just sometimes - or never? I just wondered what you meant by "I began to harbor other thoughts this morning" I just wondered if you ever had different interpretations depending on your mood like I do.  Sorry if I'm being too nosey, but you know how I just love to discuss this question..

Hello Rosie.  I do think that when Ennis said "I can't stand it anymore", Jack must have taken it a s a cue to let go, even if he still loves Ennis.  This was how I've grown to see this in the past couple of months. 

I was reading Jake's comments again thias morning, and although it is open to interpretation to a degree, I wondered what he had meant when he said that Ennis's love was more faithful.  "Faithful" can imply forever or to the death.  The fact that he thought Jack was lacking in faithfulness could have meant a number of things.  He could have been referring to Jack's exploring other relationships.  He could have meant that Jack lost hope, the way we see it.  Thinking about this though, I had thought that what Jack lacked was CONSISTENCY, and not faithfulness.   

When Jack gave up on Ennis, I would want to think that even the loss of hope for a sweet life was perhaps temporary.  I don't know.  One can be inconsistent, but keep coming back to a fixed point -- i.e., something you may wander away from but still come back to again and again.  So long as Ennis lived, could Jack forget him and his love for him?   A fixed point implies a recurrence.  It does not necessarily imply consistency.

Do you see what I was thinking?  Perhaps it is too abstract...  I hope not.

[welshwitch]

Jack can't be said to be faithful, even from the beginning. If you regard him as committed to Ennis after Brokeback, then he was unfaithful the moment he married Lureen, even when he approached Jimbo though nothing came of it, but in terms of intention he was mentally unfaithful to Ennis. If you consider his relationship with lureen as primary, then he was unfaithful to her with Ennis, then with the Mexican, then later with Randall. I think it takes a great deal of Jesuitical casuistry to see Jack as faithful in any way.

Ennis was in a sense doggedly faithful to his word - he was engaged to Alma, he married her and stuck with it till she ditched him. He was un faithful to her with Jack, or looked at from theother angle to Jack with her, if you think that he was sexually inexperienced till he met Jack and was committed to him from then on. He showed not the remotest interst in any other man and didn't stay with Cassie, so Ennis in that sense was more faithful to Jack than Jack was to him. Once divorced, he stuck with Jack although he wouldn;t live with him.

I think it is entirely poissible to see Jack as consistently inconsistent - he has other intended or actual sexual partners and despite wanting Ennis at least considers giving him up and leaving Lureen for Randall, whom he may or may not love. He's deriven by his emotions or his desires in a way Ennis isn't, and therefore I think more capavle of giving up in the end than Ennis is - Ennis is the one who after all that's said between them sends the postcard about the November meeting.

[tpe]

Jack can't be said to be faithful, even from the beginning. If you regard him as committed to Ennis after Brokeback, then he was unfaithful the moment he married Lureen, even when he approached Jimbo though nothing came of it, but in terms of intention he was mentally unfaithful to Ennis. If you consider his relationship with lureen as primary, then he was unfaithful to her with Ennis, then with the Mexican, then later with Randall. I think it takes a great deal of Jesuitical casuistry to see Jack as faithful in any way.

Ennis was in a sense doggedly faithful to his word - he was engaged to Alma, he married her and stuck with it till she ditched him. He was un faithful to her with Jack, or looked at from theother angle to Jack with her, if you think that he was sexually inexperienced till he met Jack and was committed to him from then on. He showed not the remotest interst in any other man and didn't stay with Cassie, so Ennis in that sense was more faithful to Jack than Jack was to him. Once divorced, he stuck with Jack although he wouldn;t live with him.

I think it is entirely poissible to see Jack as consistently inconsistent - he has other intended or actual sexual partners and despite wanting Ennis at least considers giving him up and leaving Lureen for Randall, whom he may or may not love. He's deriven by his emotions or his desires in a way Ennis isn't, and therefore I think more capavle of giving up in the end than Ennis is - Ennis is the one who after all that's said between them sends the postcard about the November meeting.

Ah welshwitch, you are probably right here.  It must be Jesuitical casuistry at work when I was thinking this.

Still I wonder if Jack had lost all hope entirely -- i.e., forever.  "Forever" is something that is hard to find in this world.  What if Jack had lived and things did not work out between him and Randall, would he have gone back to that hope for a life with Ennis?

This becomes all pure speculation.  How many angels can dance at a point of a needle?  Perhaps it does not matter in the long run.  BBM is powerful because of things not resolved.

[Rosie]

[
Still I wonder if Jack had lost all hope entirely -- i.e., forever.  "Forever" is something that is hard to find in this world.  What if Jack had lived and things did not work out between him and Randall, would he have gone back to that hope for a life with Ennis?

This becomes all pure speculation.  How many angels can dance at a point of a needle?  Perhaps it does not matter in the long run.  BBM is powerful because of things not resolved.

There, I think we have it. But we do enjoy the speculation. Thanks tpe and welshwitch, more to think about! Is enjoy the right word? Oh I don't know....It's late, I'm tired.

[welshwitch]

I guess he was just like any real person - inconsistent. In reality I think at the back of his mind and however unrealistic it was, he still had a little hope that one day everythng would change and he and Ennis would be together. Illusory, maybe, but we all need illusions or life would become intolerable.

[tpe]

[
Still I wonder if Jack had lost all hope entirely -- i.e., forever.  "Forever" is something that is hard to find in this world.  What if Jack had lived and things did not work out between him and Randall, would he have gone back to that hope for a life with Ennis?

This becomes all pure speculation.  How many angels can dance at a point of a needle?  Perhaps it does not matter in the long run.  BBM is powerful because of things not resolved.

There, I think we have it. But we do enjoy the speculation. Thanks tpe and welshwitch, more to think about! Is enjoy the right word? Oh I don't know....It's late, I'm tired.

The speculative bursts come every now and then.  A lot of times, I think it is hair-splitting, especially when it comes to the question that is the topic of this thread.  But I do think the fascination is rooted in the "what-if" possibilities.

Jack giving up on Ennis would have been open-ended anyway.  He was resolved to start a new life with Randall.  We really don't know if that would have been final, had he lived, of course.

Letting Jack die is, in a sense, an easy solution to this quandry of Ennis and Jack.  But that easy way out does not tie things neatly.  That is why we continue to ask these questions.

[JT]

Letting Jack die is, in a sense, an easy solution to this quandry of Ennis and Jack.  But that easy way out does not tie things neatly.  That is why we continue to ask these questions.

  Easy but the most painful.  Why does he have to die?? :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'(

I think with all powerful movies, they always make you think "what if".  They make us analyze part of their content and many of us come to different conclusions.  To me, I think Jack did really try to quit Ennis just to protect Ennis.  He will always love Ennis no matter what and setting him free was the most loving thing he could do for him.  The "dozy embrace" flashback was what made me think that Jack was trying to quit Ennis.

[MississaugaRed]

Jack can't be said to be faithful, even from the beginning. If you regard him as committed to Ennis after Brokeback, then he was unfaithful the moment he married Lureen, even when he approached Jimbo though nothing came of it, but in terms of intention he was mentally unfaithful to Ennis. If you consider his relationship with lureen as primary, then he was unfaithful to her with Ennis, then with the Mexican, then later with Randall. I think it takes a great deal of Jesuitical casuistry to see Jack as faithful in any way.

This whole take on Jack & Ennis and their faithfulness (or lack thereof!) to each other is very interesting, welshwitch ...  as we have said in past discussions ... can opened ... worms everywhere!    This line of thought, in regard to Jack's giving up on Ennis and his view on their relationship also gives it a different twist (if you'll excuse the use of the word  ) then I've thought of it before. 

I would think most people can agree that faithfulness is a reasonable demand in a relationship, and the breaking of that faithfulness can only be understood or forgiven when the circumstances are beyond the ordinary.  It's been mentioned before that for some of us it bothers us less, for instance, that Jack and Ennis both cheated on their wives than it does that they may have cheated on each other. Different set of circumstances.  Sorry if that may be OT ... 

Personally ... I don't think it would have been required for either man to be faithful ... in physical terms ... to each other during those four years after Brokeback.  Ennis was going off to get married.  Jack knew this.  He may have hoped they'd meet again, but there was no commitment between them at that time.  So ... stay faithful to what?  Ennis went about living his own life without making promises to Jack or asking them in return.  Jack had no reason not to do the same.

After they reunited ... I think then it would be a different story.  Each knew the other would have to maintain a physical relationship with their wives ... for forms sake if not to stave off their needs during the time apart.  But each likely knew, too, without having to speak of it, that aside from their wives, they would be with each other, only. 

From Jack's perspective, he was willing to endure the limitations to the true side of his nature because he always, always kept hope (at least I believe he did) that one day he and Ennis could be together permanently.  Ennis likely was thinking that as long as he kept to himself or had something else to hide behind, he could allow himself those few weeks with Jack, but probably couldn't envision anything more.

The first time we KNOW that Jack was unfaithful to Ennis was after the divorce fiasco.  I truely believe he hadn't been with another man before that, or he wouldn't have looked so ill and scared in Mexico.  His dreams were crushed, he had been reining in his desires all those years because he believed Ennis would one day really committ to him. 

Now he knows, it's not going to happen.  So I guess the question in part would be ... was their implied commitment to each other broken at the time of the divorce, when in Jack's mind the playing field had changed once again?  He wasn't on the sidelines temporarily, as he might have convinced himself, until they could work out a way to be together steady ... He was always going to be sitting on the bench.

So Jack goes to Mexico. And has Randell.  And whoever else in between. 

But Ennis has Cassie. So he's cheating on Jack as well. 

Regardless of what might be in Ennis's mind, if he's sleeping with someone he's not married to, while he and Jack are having an affair, then he's no less unfaithful than Jack was.  Jack appears understanding about Ennis's involvement with Cassie, but doesn't mean it hurts him any less than finding out about Jack's other men hurt Ennis.  Men or women, if we're holding Jack to a level of faithfulness, than Ennis must be held to the same account, don't you think?

From what you've all been discussing here has  me wondering not so much if Jack had given up on Ennis by that last time up at the lake .. but if maybe he hadn't already mostly given up, at least on his dreams of a sweet life with Ennis, from the moment he was turned away after the divorce ... Couldn't ever give up on the love, but maybe had no choice but to give up a lot of his dreams, seeing them slip away bit by bit those last seven or eight years.    If he wasn't holding on to Ennis and the dream of Ennis as tightly after the divorce, then maybe he felt the hold Ennis had on him was loosened too, enough that it made the other men possible??   

Anyway ... once again you've all given me so much more to think about in the whole Jack and Ennis dynamic!    It just never seems to stop!  And I know I'm obsessively Jack-centric, so my views may be a bit biased! 

[tpe]

Letting Jack die is, in a sense, an easy solution to this quandry of Ennis and Jack.  But that easy way out does not tie things neatly.  That is why we continue to ask these questions.

  Easy but the most painful.  Why does he have to die?? :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'(

I think with all powerful movies, they always make you think "what if".  They make us analyze part of their content and many of us come to different conclusions.  To me, I think Jack did really try to quit Ennis just to protect Ennis.  He will always love Ennis no matter what and setting him free was the most loving thing he could do for him.  The "dozy embrace" flashback was what made me think that Jack was trying to quit Ennis.

Thanks JT for saying this.  I like it to be so.  I really do.

[tpe]

From what you've all been discussing here has  me wondering not so much if Jack had given up on Ennis by that last time up at the lake .. but if maybe he hadn't already mostly given up, at least on his dreams of a sweet life with Ennis, from the moment he was turned away after the divorce ... Couldn't ever give up on the love, but maybe had no choice but to give up a lot of his dreams, seeing them slip away bit by bit those last seven or eight years.    If he wasn't holding on to Ennis and the dream of Ennis as tightly after the divorce, then maybe he felt the hold Ennis had on him was loosened too, enough that it made the other men possible??   

THis is very perceptive of you, MississaugaRed.  I do think the worst thiongs in life come up to us like this.   They seldom come in one swift clean merciful stroke. They are usually agonizing journeys of the heart.   They come with a profound sense of helplessness.  It becomes like "fate."

[JT]

Jack can't be said to be faithful, even from the beginning. If you regard him as committed to Ennis after Brokeback, then he was unfaithful the moment he married Lureen, even when he approached Jimbo though nothing came of it, but in terms of intention he was mentally unfaithful to Ennis. If you consider his relationship with lureen as primary, then he was unfaithful to her with Ennis, then with the Mexican, then later with Randall. I think it takes a great deal of Jesuitical casuistry to see Jack as faithful in any way.

This whole take on Jack & Ennis and their faithfulness (or lack thereof!) to each other is very interesting, welshwitch ...  as we have said in past discussions ... can opened ... worms everywhere!    This line of thought, in regard to Jack's giving up on Ennis and his view on their relationship also gives it a different twist (if you'll excuse the use of the word  ) then I've thought of it before. 

I would think most people can agree that faithfulness is a reasonable demand in a relationship, and the breaking of that faithfulness can only be understood or forgiven when the circumstances are beyond the ordinary.  It's been mentioned before that for some of us it bothers us less, for instance, that Jack and Ennis both cheated on their wives than it does that they may have cheated on each other. Different set of circumstances.  Sorry if that may be OT ... 

Personally ... I don't think it would have been required for either man to be faithful ... in physical terms ... to each other during those four years after Brokeback.  Ennis was going off to get married.  Jack knew this.  He may have hoped they'd meet again, but there was no commitment between them at that time.  So ... stay faithful to what?  Ennis went about living his own life without making promises to Jack or asking them in return.  Jack had no reason not to do the same.

After they reunited ... I think then it would be a different story.  Each knew the other would have to maintain a physical relationship with their wives ... for forms sake if not to stave off their needs during the time apart.  But each likely knew, too, without having to speak of it, that aside from their wives, they would be with each other, only. 

From Jack's perspective, he was willing to endure the limitations to the true side of his nature because he always, always kept hope (at least I believe he did) that one day he and Ennis could be together permanently.  Ennis likely was thinking that as long as he kept to himself or had something else to hide behind, he could allow himself those few weeks with Jack, but probably couldn't envision anything more.

The first time we KNOW that Jack was unfaithful to Ennis was after the divorce fiasco.  I truely believe he hadn't been with another man before that, or he wouldn't have looked so ill and scared in Mexico.  His dreams were crushed, he had been reining in his desires all those years because he believed Ennis would one day really committ to him. 

Now he knows, it's not going to happen.  So I guess the question in part would be ... was their implied commitment to each other broken at the time of the divorce, when in Jack's mind the playing field had changed once again?  He wasn't on the sidelines temporarily, as he might have convinced himself, until they could work out a way to be together steady ... He was always going to be sitting on the bench.

So Jack goes to Mexico. And has Randell.  And whoever else in between. 

But Ennis has Cassie. So he's cheating on Jack as well. 

Regardless of what might be in Ennis's mind, if he's sleeping with someone he's not married to, while he and Jack are having an affair, then he's no less unfaithful than Jack was.  Jack appears understanding about Ennis's involvement with Cassie, but doesn't mean it hurts him any less than finding out about Jack's other men hurt Ennis.  Men or women, if we're holding Jack to a level of faithfulness, than Ennis must be held to the same account, don't you think?

From what you've all been discussing here has  me wondering not so much if Jack had given up on Ennis by that last time up at the lake .. but if maybe he hadn't already mostly given up, at least on his dreams of a sweet life with Ennis, from the moment he was turned away after the divorce ... Couldn't ever give up on the love, but maybe had no choice but to give up a lot of his dreams, seeing them slip away bit by bit those last seven or eight years.    If he wasn't holding on to Ennis and the dream of Ennis as tightly after the divorce, then maybe he felt the hold Ennis had on him was loosened too, enough that it made the other men possible??   

Anyway ... once again you've all given me so much more to think about in the whole Jack and Ennis dynamic!    It just never seems to stop!  And I know I'm obsessively Jack-centric, so my views may be a bit biased! 

Well said!  I agree with on this.  Not biased, but true.

[greenfrog]

I don't think that Jack completly gave up Ennis.

I don't think he could.

He could try to make it with Randall, but the longing for Ennis would probably never go away.  :\'(

[welshwitch]

When you have loved someone for a long time, although under all sorts of constraints and with all kind of problems, they become a part of you. Jack and Ennis are a part of each other; I don't think either ever stopped loving the other, but I do think Jack gave up believing that ennis would ever change and that there would ever be a future when they were permanently together.

[tpe]

Would Ennis have changed had he realized that Jack had finally settled with another man?  Or would he have treated Jack the same way he treated Cassie?  I doubt the latter.  Nonetheless, ad Jack lived and had he started to share a life with Randall, I seriously doubt that Ennis would have done nothing. 

Would he have tried to kill Jack, as he had threatened in the fight by the lake?  Ennis's reaction, had Jack lived, intrigues me greatly...

 

[LuvJackNasty]

From what you've all been discussing here has  me wondering not so much if Jack had given up on Ennis by that last time up at the lake .. but if maybe he hadn't already mostly given up, at least on his dreams of a sweet life with Ennis, from the moment he was turned away after the divorce ... Couldn't ever give up on the love, but maybe had no choice but to give up a lot of his dreams, seeing them slip away bit by bit those last seven or eight years.    If he wasn't holding on to Ennis and the dream of Ennis as tightly after the divorce, then maybe he felt the hold Ennis had on him was loosened too, enough that it made the other men possible??   

THis is very perceptive of you, MississaugaRed.  I do think the worst thiongs in life come up to us like this.   They seldom come in one swift clean merciful stroke. They are usually agonizing journeys of the heart.   They come with a profound sense of helplessness.  It becomes like "fate."

That's what I think- that after the divorce scene his dreams really started to unravel. It was then that he knew without a doubt that it was Ennis holding Ennis back. I don't believe that he would ever give Ennis up;the dream of the sweet life? Yes. Lately I've been seeing the flashback as Jack remembering/chasing the ghost of Brokeback past- Ennis was freely loving him then; that's the Ennis he was chasing. In a way it is selfish to want them to stay locked in those "seperate and difficult lives" but to me, they are so much a part of each other that it'd be like losing a vital organ if they were to seperate permanently. Do I want to think that Jack loved Ennis enough to let him go for Ennis' sake? Yes and for his own sake as well, but that's the cold, rational head speaking. The heart won't allow me to believe that they could ever quit each other.

[welshwitch]

You can live a separate life, move on, in the jargon, but love doesn't disappear because it's not openly manifested. Each of them is there inside the other,too closely interwoven ever to be disentangled.

"Those who one another keep alive ne're parted be,"

[Valandil Eluch]

Love is really funny sometimes it is our happiness and at the same time our doom…

Let’s say that in this case for both of them was the same, the fact that Jack waited for nearly 20 years for Ennis is one of the most beautiful ways to express his love. He lived on Ennis pace, waiting him to confirm their encounters and even though they were less and less possible thanks to Ennis jobs, he didn’t complained (not until the End at least), but why? Why he complained? Was because he stops loving Ennis? Wrong! It was the opposite! He couldn’t take it any longer he waited for a long time, and he was dying to have Ennis on his side, it came to the time for him that he didn’t need a week Ennis; he needed a 24/7 a 365 days Ennis! Is this called giving up? No, it is called rights, Jack had all the right to ask this, he knew Ennis loved him and he loved him too, but Ennis was too scared to accept it. So I’ve read on other places that he let him go, could be not forever that’s for sure, but at least for a time in which Ennis could realize his own feelings (I think, forgive me if  I’m wrong) as we see on his last Encounter with Cassie Ennis is different somehow his last meeting with Jack affected him (and I think it was a good change) but Jack could have tried to start a new life, but love is a doom sometimes and no matter how much you tried to take it from your heart it’s there still untouched, frozen until you resign to accept the truth, True Love can’t be forgotten, there’s one song I like that says that true love is eternal and the others are just to try to forget which never happens. Jack and Ennis are clear on this no matter how much they tried at the beginning to forget it never went through.

I said it once, when my mother died my father never married again, he tried to get into other relationships, but none of them worked. When I was older enough to ask (19) I asked him why he never got married again, he told me that he couldn’t quit my mother, she was her real and only love and no matter how many other women he date my mother was the one in her heart. Now I recall that memory and I compare it to Jack and Ennis and conclude with this let him go maybe…Give up on him? Never, Nunca, jamais.

[greenfrog]

"Those who one another keep alive ne're parted be,"

Beautiful . . .

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