The Phone Call

[City Girl]

The only thing I must say is that I truly believe Ennis knew it was love he felt for Jack.  What else would keep them coming back so gladly to each other for almost 20 yrs.?  This is not a sex thing; this is a love thing and they both know it. 

Sorry but while I totally agree that it was love (and anybody with eyes could see it) but Ennis, being Ennis, just doesn't see it as "love".  In his mind he just can't.  By "knowing" that it was love then he'd actually have to admit to himself that he was a homosexual, one of those guys, and he just can't bring himself to do that.

[janjo]

Apart from the fact that Ennis does know, he knows he is homosexual and knows he in love..................he knows both things so well that he has to deny it to himself....and everyone else.
It is why he gets so angry whenever it is suggested that it might be the case.
Funny thing the human mind.

Lureen knows who he is when he phones her exactly who he is, and that he is the author of her difficult relationship with her late husband.
In the end everyone knows but Ennis himself, who knows, but has been deluding himself on the subject for years.

[ChangeINeed]

Yeap... everybody knew and that is the saddest thing of all. Ennis denied himself and Jack the life they could have, trying to hide what almost everybody knew.. Alma knew, Junior knew,Mama Twist knew,Lureen knew.

WTF is going on with most of us people? A similar secret hangs above my family the last 60 years, still ruining hearts.Shit!

[kathy]

**How in the world could Alma Jr. know?  There's no impression of that in either ss or film.**

kathy 

[City Girl]

**How in the world could Alma Jr. know?  There's no impression of that in either ss or film.**

kathy  

People have often thought her comment about how her father is "not the marrying kind" was indicative that she "knew" something about her father's preferences.  And she is old enough to have remembered her father's joy leading up to those fishing trips.  No new wife, her Daddy taking time off from work when he wouldn't for other reasons and time off that he really couldn't afford, her father's priorities...  

She appears to be smart enough to put 2 and 2 together.

[janjo]

I would concur with that.
I suspect also that is why she tells Cassie, "You're good enough." She thinks she is fine, but doesn't think her father is the marrying kind. She has also met Jack however briefly, and has seen her father's reaction to him.
Nothing overt, but children tend to understand their parents, often more than the parents would actually like.

[ChangeINeed]

It's true. Children tend to realise and understand things that they shouldn't... I have personal experience.. The anticipation before each trip that you try to hide, the joy after the trip that lasts only for some days, the dark cloud of sadness that hangs above till the next trip.. Here in Greece we say that there is no way to hide three things: cough, money and love.

[fofol]

Yeap... everybody knew and that is the saddest thing of all. Ennis denied himself and Jack the life they could have, trying to hide what almost everybody knew.. Alma knew, Junior knew,Mama Twist knew,Lureen knew.

WTF is going on with most of us people? A similar secret hangs above my family the last 60 years, still ruining hearts.Shit!

    Safe to bet it wasn't  Alma, Alma Jr, Ma Twist or Lureen who tortured and murdered Earl, no?  Ennis was repressed and afraid, yes, but that is because he saw with his own eyes what happens in that time and place to men who openly pair up with another man.  To Ennis, he wouldn't live with Jack because he had lived through witnessing the muderously direct effect of rural homophobia.  From Ennis's point of view, he wasn't denying Jack anything, he was keeping him alive.  Jack wasn't getting what he wanted, so that's why he regarded their situation as Ennis not giving what he wanted, instead of Ennis protecting him.

[ChangeINeed]

Maybe you right fofol, I don't know.. 

Some of the biggest mistakes are made of the notion that you must and can protect your loved ones... your parents, your children, your partner... whoever...But you can't control life, you can just live it.
 After all Earl and Ritch probably had some good years together before the tire irons and that's the only thing that they could offer to each other.Tough old birds, indeed!

[fofol]

Maybe you right fofol, I don't know.. 

Some of the biggest mistakes are made of the notion that you must and can protect your loved ones... your parents, your children, your partner... whoever...But you can't control life, you can just live it.
 After all Earl and Ritch probably had some good years together before the tire irons and that's the only thing that they could offer to each other.Tough old birds, indeed!

   Well, Change, Ms. Proulx has been widely quoted as stating that the story is primarily about Destructive Rural Homophobia, and Ennis's experience would certainly qualify that remark because that is the seminal instance that begins his withdrawal from society.  This is also reflected in the phone call:  we discover that Lureen has not known about the depth of the relationship they had until Ennis tells her that he's known Jack since they were herdin' sheep up on Brokeback (a place that she thought might be mythical, and her only source about it was Jack, so that's where her ideas about it come from) in '63.   From the ancillary materials - interviews on the DVDs and in other media, articles written by the three writers, etc., we do know that in that time and place (just as today in some places in the rural West) nominally heterosexual boys did/do have sex with one another safely as long as they follow the 'rules' as Ennis lived them - what happens in the mountains stays in the mountains, and there is no outwardly expression of affection for the other guy.

[ChangeINeed]

I understand but i just can't accept it in my heart. 

[fofol]

It might make it easier to remember that in the story the author goes to great pains to make them equal but different - same generalized background: lonesome childhood; traumatic event in each childhood with such long-lasting effects that each boy's life is shaped by it; poverty; a hateful father who does not become involved in his child's life.  They also hurt each other without intending to: Ennis has his good reasons for not living with Jack, and Jack believes he has good reasons for lying to Ennis about having sex with other men.

[Marge_Innavera]

Some of the biggest mistakes are made of the notion that you must and can protect your loved ones... your parents, your children, your partner... whoever...But you can't control life, you can just live it.
 After all Earl and Ritch probably had some good years together before the tire irons and that's the only thing that they could offer to each other.Tough old birds, indeed!

Yes, and if Ennis and Jack had lived together, one of them might very well have died years before the other; in any number of circumstances. Ennis might be rationalizing when he says the 'sweet life" is too dangerous but he's right at the same time.  The irony, if Jack's death was indeed an accident, would be that he focuses on one major threat but the multiple threats of life's uncontrollability win out in the end.

Annie Proulx evidently did intend the story to be "primarily about Destructive Rural Homophobia"; but IMO the story would be long forgotten if it was just a polemic with no other dimension.  Works of fiction sometimes have a way of getting out of their creator's control, and that's not always a bad thing.

[Marge_Innavera]

**How in the world could Alma Jr. know?  There's no impression of that in either ss or film.**

kathy  

She might have guessed some things; but IMO her "not the marrying kind" remark could be taken more than one way. After all, if Ennis was heterosexual with the same kind of repressed, uncommunicative personality (which can result from any number of causes), he'd be rather... challenging marital material.  

We know for sure that Alma knows because she says so and because we see her catch Ennis and Jack in an intimate moment; Monroe probably knows by the time that Thanksgiving is over; Lureen knows after Ennis' phone call but it's unlikely she'll ever do anything about it and even more unlikely that she and Ennis will ever meet; Alma Junior might be getting some vibes; Cassie throws up her hands and says she doesn't understand him.  Not a very likely cast of characters for the "everybody" who supposedly know. And after all, Ennis paranoia would come into play even if nobody knew.

[kathy]

   Hi marge --

I also believe that Alma Jr.'s remark of Ennis not "being the marrying kind" can be taken more than one way.  After all, Alma Jr. is very disappointed when her dad comes to pick her up and Cassie is there; she doesn't like that one bit.  I think she wants her daddy to herself when he comes. 

Yes - I just don't agree with the possibility that "everybody" knows too.  No matter how much Ennis & Jack love each other; no matter how much they (including Ennis) want to be together (remember - Ennis breaks down and sobs in Jack's arms at that argument and admits "I just can't stand this anymore, Jack"), Ennis' feelings of being exposed & the memories of Earl in that ditch gets his paranoia starting, like you say, even if nobody knew.** 

kathy