Stoicism is showing and indifference to either pleasure or pain -- i.e., taking life as it comes. Ennis tries to show this many times, but we do know that it is all a facade, by the way he breaks down in the alley, or the way he breaks down in the final confrontation.
Relating to the scene in the closet with the shirts, we see the true Ennis, engulfed in a quiet sea of sadness. That's what he truly was inside, and not the stoic he wanted people to see.
Ennis was building a kind of indifference wall around him to protect him from his social environment that was aggressive against same-sex relationship.But at the end,this wall turned into a way of protecting against himself:against his inner feelings and wishes,against his own fear of "getting mad" and throw stones against this wall until break it down.That's to say,letting all behind and living the sweet life with Jack,what he really wished in spite of himself...But all the walls,as high and strong they could be,fall before evidences,as in the closet scene.What a great struggle with himself had this man¡.
