Topic: Did Ennis have abandoment issues?

[manhattangirl]

Hi,

I wanted to throw this out for consideration:

Did Ennis have abandonment issues?  Every one that was important in his young life left him.

After the first summer, when Ennis and Jack had to come down off the mountain,  he was angry, upset, sitting on the hill like a child not wanting to come home from the park, and it came out in the play figthing that turned violent,  not after Jacks knee hit his nose, and Ennis slugs him, but just before then when Ennis really went at him.   When  they go off  separately,  Ennis had such a violent physical and emotional reaction. 

The scene when Alma, Jr. wanted to move in with him and he refused, because he works so much. Even Cassie, (well, we all know that wasn't happening).

And then there the last confrontation scene,  when Jack said "I wish I knew how to quit you", and Ennis shot back "Well why don't, why don't leave me be."   

 I was wondering, and I don't know if this makes sense.  Ennis battled with the only two people that really cared for him, Jack and Alma, Jr.  Knowingly or not he push them back to a distance where he can emotionally and mentally handle them.  Afraid that one day they will leave him, like his parents, siblings left him.

Ennis preempted what he feared most from happening,, loss and not realize he was doing it.

Sometimes we fight against the one thing we want the most.

Please let me know what you think.

[welshwitch]

Ennis lost both his parents in a car crash when he was in his early teens - then when he moved with his sister ad brother they both got married and in the end had no room for him. Then Alma deserted him. You can imagine that Ennis was, either consciously or subconsciously, convinced that no-one was ever going to stay with him.In which case it's easier to push someone away yourself, before they leave you.At least that way instead of being hurt you have the dubious satisfaction of knowing that you dumped them before they had a chance to dump you.

Jack went off and married; later he also went to Mexico and admitted as much, as well as saying he was having an affair with "the ranch foreman's wife". Alma Jr came to see him to sat that she was going to marry someone who worked on the oil rigs in the Gulf - from Ennis's point of view neither of these look as if they'll be around for him permanently. Yes, Jack meets him every so often, bt he has a stable background and a whole life elsewhere - it would be difficult for Ennis to see Jack as likely to give this up for him, because apart from everything else Ennis has a clear sense of his own worthlessness.

[tpe]

I think Ennis was used to the loneliess.  Losing both parent early on certainly set the tone, especially with his relationships. 

He had convinced himself that one had to be ready to stand alone -- to be self sufficent and stoic.  It was not that he loved it; he probably hated it.  But he had grown to accept that this was his fate, and that the love he had for Jack had to be borne in silence.


I don't think he feared losing anything, because from the start, he assumed that he had nothing.

[FlwrChild]

Ennis Del Mar

"If you don't got nothin', you don't need nothin'."

[tpe]

Ennis Del Mar

"If you don't got nothin', you don't need nothin'."

Precisely.  Thanks, FlwrChild.  This ties in so nicely...

[lamusica]

I don't think Ennis really ever wanted anything.  He certainly wasn't eager to try any new career ( lineman for the telephone company, for instance) that might have afforded a better income.  He was content living as he and Alma were living.  He didn't seem to want any material things.  He never had anything, so he didn't really want anything.  However, this mentality kept him from having any dreams ( like Jack did).  He never considered that he and Jack could have had a good life together.  It's not that he didn't want that; he just never gave it any serious consideration.  He didn't believe it could happen, so why want it?
Did he even want Jack enough to consider a possible change that would allow them to be together all the time, or at least more often than their present arrangement?  I don't think he ever thought he could have Jack,so why dream about it?
    This kind of lack of faith comes from early training that convinces a person they will never be more than they are now.  There is nothing more out there for them, so they need to settle for what they have.  Thus, he stayed in a marriage that lacked any real feeling; later he just went through the motions of living.  He stayed alone because he couldn't believe in anything better.

[Gabester2006]

Interesting...kind of like learned helplessness was Ennis' mode of operation. And, it does seem he had abandonment issues given his early history as well as the loss of important others in his life along the way. It seems at times he tried to reject others before they either became attached to, or rejected him.

[tpe]

I don't think Ennis really ever wanted anything.  He certainly wasn't eager to try any new career ( lineman for the telephone company, for instance) that might have afforded a better income.  He was content living as he and Alma were living.  He didn't seem to want any material things.  He never had anything, so he didn't really want anything.  However, this mentality kept him from having any dreams ( like Jack did).  He never considered that he and Jack could have had a good life together.  It's not that he didn't want that; he just never gave it any serious consideration.  He didn't believe it could happen, so why want it?
Did he even want Jack enough to consider a possible change that would allow them to be together all the time, or at least more often than their present arrangement?  I don't think he ever thought he could have Jack,so why dream about it?
    This kind of lack of faith comes from early training that convinces a person they will never be more than they are now.  There is nothing more out there for them, so they need to settle for what they have.  Thus, he stayed in a marriage that lacked any real feeling; later he just went through the motions of living.  He stayed alone because he couldn't believe in anything better.

Perfectly stated, lamusica.   

Whether this attitude had anything to do with Ennis being orphaned early in life, Im'm not sure.  Perhaps it ties in somehow or other -- it made him a realist early on.  A terrible thing: when a child is made to grow up too soon and stop dreaming.  Perhaps if Ennis had a happier childhood, he would have had a better appreciation of Jack's dreams. 

[tpe]

Interesting...kind of like learned helplessness was Ennis' mode of operation. And, it does seem he had abandonment issues given his early history as well as the loss of important others in his life along the way. It seems at times he tried to reject others before they either became attached to, or rejected him.

Gabester2006, I like the way you call it: learned helplessness.  I do think it was pre-conditioned by Ennis's lost childhood.  Had his parents not died, I wonder if he would have been more sympathetic to jack's desire for a shared life.

And welcome to the forum. 

[welshwitch]

There's the fact that unless you are the world's greatest egotist, when you fall in love yu believe theo ther person is so amazing that you can never quite believe that they would fall in love with you, so that uinderneath you are always partly expecting them to find you out and leave you.

Ennis didn;t have a high opinion of himself - I can just imagine him thinking that Jack would eventually move on.

[jackster]

I don't think he feared losing anything, because from the start, he assumed that he had nothing.

Exactly tpe.
From the first paragraph BBM, Annie Proulx:

. . . both high school drop out country boys with no prospects, brought up to hard work and privation, both rough mannered, rough spoken, inured to the stoic life. Ennis, reared by his older brother and sister after their parents drove off the only curve on Dead Horse Road, leaving them twenty four dollars in cash and a two mortgage ranch, applied at age fourteen for a hardship license that let him make the hour long trip from the ranch to the high school. The pickup was old, no heater, one windshield wiper, and bad tires; when the transmission went, there was no money to fix it. He had wanted to be a sophomore, felt the word carried a kind of distinction, but the truck broke down short of it, pitching him directly into ranch work.

To say things hadn’t “worked out” for the young Ennis would be putting it mildly.

“But if you can't fix it you got a stand it”

I think Ennis's behavior was his method for “standing it”, it was just too painful otherwise. I think he did a pretty good job of “standing it” all things considered. A lot of men would have become just a drunk or worse. He did want one thing, Jack, but couldn’t figure out how to realistically make that happen, that is “to fix it”. Maybe with some adolescent growing-up type advice from his parents this might of happened, but instead one of the lasting impressions he’s left with is a man killed and castrated (possibly by Ennis’s own father) for doing exactly what Ennis now wants most, to live with another man. No wonder he’s a twisted bundle of emotions.

jackster

[FlwrChild]

ww and jackster - excellent posts! You are absolutely right.

They both did quite an impressive job of 'evolving' beyond their upbringings, imo. Though Ennis was never able to break free of his the way I think Jack was.

[tpe]

Exactly tpe.
From the first paragraph BBM, Annie Proulx:

. . . both high school drop out country boys with no prospects, brought up to hard work and privation, both rough mannered, rough spoken, inured to the stoic life. Ennis, reared by his older brother and sister after their parents drove off the only curve on Dead Horse Road, leaving them twenty four dollars in cash and a two mortgage ranch, applied at age fourteen for a hardship license that let him make the hour long trip from the ranch to the high school. The pickup was old, no heater, one windshield wiper, and bad tires; when the transmission went, there was no money to fix it. He had wanted to be a sophomore, felt the word carried a kind of distinction, but the truck broke down short of it, pitching him directly into ranch work.

To say things hadn’t “worked out” for the young Ennis would be putting it mildly.

“But if you can't fix it you got a stand it”

I think Ennis's behavior was his method for “standing it”, it was just too painful otherwise. I think he did a pretty good job of “standing it” all things considered. A lot of men would have become just a drunk or worse. He did want one thing, Jack, but couldn’t figure out how to realistically make that happen, that is “to fix it”. Maybe with some adolescent growing-up type advice from his parents this might of happened, but instead one of the lasting impressions he’s left with is a man killed and castrated (possibly by Ennis’s own father) for doing exactly what Ennis now wants most, to live with another man. No wonder he’s a twisted bundle of emotions.

jackster

Thanks, jackster .

I think the problem with Ennis was that he had developed a high threshold for pain.  And yes, I do think even though he was not a devout church-going man, the concept of sin was burned deep into his psyche.  Even though he was orphaned at an early age, he had seen enough and felt enough to see life as one of hardships and suffering to those who strayed from the path.