Topic: Lightning Flat made Jack a dreamer

[dresden]

An observation: Jack's parents home has got to be one of the most drab and depressing "homes"  I have ever seen = making it a perfect setting for Jack's equally depressing parents. And the landscape surrounding the home (Lightning Flat) even more drab. Little wonder Jack was a dreamer coming from such an environment.

[tpe]

I must say that there is something very true about your observation.

In small towns in the USA, young people are unusually restless.  They dream of moving out at first opportunity for places where there is more excitement and more opportunities -- typically the cities or the coastal regions.  This accounts for the steady depletion of the US Midwest for a number of years now. 

I picture Jack here as no different.  Although he probably did not dream that much of moving to the cities or the coasts, he probably dreamed of better things for himself and his loved ones.

I also think that a not-so loving-father figure probably made him cherish a sensitive and caring disposition. 

If you are in the middle of nowhere with very few people to interact with besides your parents an a few ranch neighbors, you would probably compensate by dreaming up plans of what is to be. 

There is an interesting section in Jake Gyllenhaal's 'Jarhead' where he dreams and makes plans of what he will do once he gets back home. 

The desert and Lightning Flat have a number of things in common...

But let us note that Lightning Flat was always a reference point for Jack to come back to.

I think he never forgot where he came from.

[welshwitch]

There is a sense in which emptiness gives us a canvas on which we can paint whatever we like. Jack's home and its surroundings are in essence blank and the only view is of the road stretching away into who knows what? Add to that the sense Jack had that whatever he did he could never please his father and you have a perfect way of turning him into a dreamer, who wants to escape into a more colorful world - isn't that why he chooses to rodeo? That and the dream of ourdoing his father, who took so little interest and gave him no encouragement.

[tpe]

There is a sense in which emptiness gives us a canvas on which we can paint whatever we like. Jack's home and its surroundings are in essence blank and the only view is of the road stretching away into who knows what? Add to that the sense Jack had that whatever he did he could never please his father and you have a perfect way of turning him into a dreamer, who wants to escape into a more colorful world - isn't that why he chooses to rodeo? That and the dream of ourdoing his father, who took so little interest and gave him no encouragement.

Wonderful, welshwitch.

Emptiness calls forth dreams...

Dreams beget a more colorful world: both real and imaginary.

[chameau]

I must say that there is something very true about your observation.

In small towns in the USA, young people are unusually restless.  They dream of moving out at first opportunity for places where there is more excitement and more opportunities -- typically the cities or the coastal regions.  This accounts for the steady depletion of the US Midwest for a number of years now. 

I picture Jack here as no different.  Although he probably did not dream that much of moving to the cities or the coasts, he probably dreamed of better things for himself and his loved ones.

I also think that a not-so loving-father figure probably made him cherish a sensitive and caring disposition. 

If you are in the middle of nowhere with very few people to interact with besides your parents an a few ranch neighbors, you would probably compensate by dreaming up plans of what is to be. 

There is an interesting section in Jake Gyllenhaal's 'Jarhead' where he dreams and makes plans of what he will do once he gets back home. 

The desert and Lightning Flat have a number of things in common...

But let us note that Lightning Flat was always a reference point for Jack to come back to.

I think he never forgot where he came from.

Very well said, like always Thomas.  This is an intersting thread, is see it's your fisrt postsing here Dresden, welcome on ennijack.com

[goblondie]

Sorry for asking bit stupid,but what is Lightning Flat?

[chameau]

Sorry for asking bit stupid,but what is Lightning Flat?

The village place in Wyoming where Jack was born and raised.