I always wondered about the role of Cassie in the movie because it stood out in such contrast to the rest of the characters, except for Monroe.
They are the only happy people that the four of them ever met and lived with. Tamlynn's analysis of both Cassie and Jack's salemanship is brilliant! (
I have another explanation of Ennis' seeming disinterests in the lovely Cassie. We don't know that Ennis was not interested in Cassie sexually. He just was not very expressive by nature. Furthermore, with Jack on his mind all the time, I doubt that he had room to think about anyone else. Most of all, I think Ennis has the integrity to know that it would be unfair to Cassie to get involved, and then not being able to live up to her expectations of a normal marriage, etc. He defended Elma against Jack. He knew the lying was wrong all those years. He just didn't know what to do about it. As much as he enjoyed being with Cassie, it was not love, and he didn't want to hurt her any more. So he stopped returning her calls.
Cassie is understandably attracted to the strong silent type in Ennis. It's just that this strong silent one is quiet and brooding for a reason that she didn't understand, and would never get. Even Elma, when confronted with it on her doorstep, could not deal with it. I am just stunned that Ennis never talked with her to find out what's bothering her. In a way, Ennis made the divorce inevitable by not caring for Elma like a loving husband. Even if Elma did not see the kiss, she had every right to be upset, and leave him.
It is this tragic web of deceit that Ennis was referring to in their last meeting. Ennis wanted to do the right thing, to be a good provider for his family, to be a good husband, like he was a good cowboy. But Brokeback and Jack made all of that impossible, and he had no control over it. In his own mind, he was nothing, he lost all respect for himself. He probably thought Cassie was better off with someone else. When Cassie told him that "girls don't fall in love with fun" he woke up to the name of this thing between him and Jack. That's when he wrote the postcard to initiate the meeting in November. And the deeper tragedy was that when he was finally ready to express his love, he couldn't! And then hearing from Jack's father that Jack had wanted all these years to spend a life together, and then finding the two shirts! It was one thing to be unable to express his love to Jack, thinking Jack had already stopped loving him (like that first summer when he thought Jack was sore from the punch). It was quite another to know that for twenty years, Jack had loved him, and he didn't know, and now would never be able to return that love.
It was a long journey for one cowboy to learning the meaning of love, with many innocent people hurt along the way (Elma, Cassie, Jack, Laureen).
There is no right or wrong, no good girl, bad girl. All the characters did the best they could, but the circumstances made it impossible for a good outcome. In the end, Elma and Monroe have a happy life, and their children found love. Bobby probably will do well in Grandpa's business, and Laureen will move on with her life, in the country club, with the other wives. Even Cassie will find a man, or perhaps even love. Jack and Ennis were robbed of their chance for happiness. That was the only tragedy that really stood out in the story because there was no way to fix it, so Ennis just had to stand it, all those years of lonely vigil until their ashes can be together again on Brokeback Mountain.
I think that's what he meant when he says, at the end, "Jack I swear". It was a promise to put in his own will, that he and Jack will spend eternity together in Brokeback Mountain. I can be totally wrong, of course. But that's what I'd like to think of Ennis, the romantic devoted cowboy who seeks redemption by doing the one thing that Jack asked of him.
He wasn't living a lonely life, just a life filled with memories alone.
