Anxiety the state of apprehension, physic tension or mental uneasiness caused by fear, as of danger. (The Merriam-Webster Dictionary) Many characters of the “contemporary” period are consumed by anxiety, which often results in a psychological division for the individual. One such character whose life is plagued by this type of ambivalence is Ennis del Mar in Brokeback Mountain. When Ennis met Jack Twist in the summer of 1963, there was a clear connection between the two men that defied any boundaries that society set forth. Even before their first sexual encounter, Ennis had come up behind Jack and held him against his chest, humming quietly and swaying in front of the fire, and after there first awkward, yet intensely passionate night together, it was evident that the men would never be able to quit each other. They never talked about the sex, let it happen, at first only in the tent at night, then in the full daylight with the hot sun striking down, and at evening in the fire glow, quick, rough, laughing and snorting, no lack of noises, but saying not a goddamn word except Ennis said, “I’m not no queer,” and jack jumped in with “Me neither. A one shot thing. Nobody’s business but ours.” Indeed it isn’t anybody’s business but theirs and, alone with only each other and the animals, they were free to love without fear, but in the real world-the world they return to the end of the summer- people tend to pay attention to other people’s business and that’s what concerns Ennis. Ennis’ fear of “being queer”, or having his sexuality being found out about, goes back to his childhood when there was a couple of men, Earl and Rich, who lived together not far from Ennis until tragedy struck. One day Earl was found dead in an irrigation ditch; whoever had done it had taken a tire iron to him, tied him up, and dragged him around by his genitalia until his penis was pulled off. Not only had Ennis heard about this hideous act, but his father had also taken him and his brother to see it and laughed about it, might’ve even done it according to Ennis. Which is why, when Jack brings up the idea of getting a ranch together Ennis declines, saying that all they can do is sneak off together a few times a year because anything more would lead to their deaths. Not that his fears are at all irrational. When Jack went back to Joe Aguirre for a job the following summer, there was clearly homophobia at the root of why he won’t hire him again, saying that Jack and Ennis weren’t paid to leave the sheep with the dogs “while you stemmed the rose.” Furthermore, by the end of the story Jack suffers the same fate as Earl, proving Ennis’ fears were indeed accurate. Being that Ennis finds maintaining a gay relationship with Jack so hard and believes that they are damned if they do, damned if they don’t, one would think that Ennis should forget about Jack and live out his life with his wife, Alma, and their two daughters, Alma Jr. and Francine. He had seemed perfectly content, even if he was not completely successful, with his life for the first four years after his summer on Brokeback Mountain, but once he heard from Jack all of the feelings that he had came rushing back. Still he contented that he was straight. “You know, I was sitting up here all that time trying to figure out of I was-? I know I ain’t . I mean here we both got wives and kids, right? I like doing it with woman, … but ain’t nothing like this. I never had no thoughts a doin it with another guy except I sure wrang it out a hundred times thinking about you,” And adding, “That summer when we split up after we got paid out I had gut cramps so bad I pulled over and tried to puke, thought I ate something bad at that place in Dubois. Took me about a year a figure out it was that I shouldn’t let you out a my sights. Too late then by a long while.” It’s not that he doesn’t love his family, he does love his daughters and he wants to be happy with Alma but there just isn’t anything that comes close to what he feels for Jack, he even wonders if this happens to other people and how do they overcome it. Since he was unable to overcome true emotions, Ennis’ marriage falls apart. Alma had seen the kiss between Jack and her husband, and he never would do anything with her and the girls, but he would always find the time to go fishing with Jack, so she divorced Ennis and remarried. Ennis understood and didn’t have any hard feelings toward her until she accused him of having something more than friendship with “Jack Nasty.” Faced with the accusation of having a homosexual affair, true though it was, Ennis grabs Alma by the arm and begins hurting her and yelling at her. This is the woman that he had, at one time, planned to share his life with and he can’t even manage to tell her of the love that he has for, and with Jack. No matter how much inner anguish Ennis has, he still manages to go up to the mountains with Jack for years, though he does seem to try to avoid it sometimes. On what turns out to be their last week together, in May 1983, the two men have an argument because Ennis says he won’t be able to get together for a week in August as they had planned and blames it on work. This might be indeed the case but Jack reasons “you used to come away easy. It’s like seein the pope now,” and though Ennis isn’t young and can’t just keep quitting jobs when he can’t get off to see Jack the way he had in the past, that coupled with Ennis inner conflict makes me think that he might’ve been trying to stay away from Jack in order to try and salvage a “normal” existence and trick his mind into believing he’s “not queer”. However if that is indeed the case, Ennis can’t mask his feelings, even during the argument; soon the conversation turns to Ennis wanting to know weather or not Jack goes to Mexico to have sex with hustlers. When Jack says yes Ennis ranges on, with a mixture of jealousy and fear, “I got a say this to you one time, Jack…all them things I don’t know could get you killed if I should come to know them.” When Jack fires back that they could’ve had a wonderful life together but Ennis kept that from happening, “then you ask me about Mexico and tell me you’ll kill me for needing it and not hardly never getting it.” And finishes up by saying that he wishes that he could get over him, Ennis falls down to his knees heartbroken. The love he feels for Jack lives on beyond Jack’s death, he even goes to Jack’s parents house and offers to take the ashes up to Brokeback Mountain. However I feel it is only after that meeting, and subsequently finding Jacks shirt hung over his own shirt, that Ennis finally begins to feel comfortable with their relationship. He buys a postcard with a picture of Brokeback Mountain and hangs it over the shirts in his trailer. Though he still doesn’t talk about what existed between them, he has openly acknowledged it with this display. At this time, Jack begins to appear in Ennis’ dreams because Ennis has finally allowed himself to think freely about Jack.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Revisting Brokeback Mountain
Recently, probably prompted by watching IMAGINARIUM, I began thinking about Heath Ledger's turn as ENNIS DEL MAR in Brokeback Mountain. Because of this, and the fact that I really haven't had the time to blog lately, I thought I would share an essay I wrote about the short story during a literature class in college. The paper got an A, along with some great feedback from the professor and is even published on the The Association of Young Journalists and Writers Website (Ok I am tooting my own horn but I think pride in a job well done is fine.) Hope you enjoy Anxiety the state of apprehension, physic tension or mental uneasiness caused by fear, as of danger. (The Merriam-Webster Dictionary) Many characters of the “contemporary” period are consumed by anxiety, which often results in a psychological division for the individual. One such character whose life is plagued by this type of ambivalence is Ennis del Mar in Brokeback Mountain. When Ennis met Jack Twist in the summer of 1963, there was a clear connection between the two men that defied any boundaries that society set forth. Even before their first sexual encounter, Ennis had come up behind Jack and held him against his chest, humming quietly and swaying in front of the fire, and after there first awkward, yet intensely passionate night together, it was evident that the men would never be able to quit each other. They never talked about the sex, let it happen, at first only in the tent at night, then in the full daylight with the hot sun striking down, and at evening in the fire glow, quick, rough, laughing and snorting, no lack of noises, but saying not a goddamn word except Ennis said, “I’m not no queer,” and jack jumped in with “Me neither. A one shot thing. Nobody’s business but ours.” Indeed it isn’t anybody’s business but theirs and, alone with only each other and the animals, they were free to love without fear, but in the real world-the world they return to the end of the summer- people tend to pay attention to other people’s business and that’s what concerns Ennis. Ennis’ fear of “being queer”, or having his sexuality being found out about, goes back to his childhood when there was a couple of men, Earl and Rich, who lived together not far from Ennis until tragedy struck. One day Earl was found dead in an irrigation ditch; whoever had done it had taken a tire iron to him, tied him up, and dragged him around by his genitalia until his penis was pulled off. Not only had Ennis heard about this hideous act, but his father had also taken him and his brother to see it and laughed about it, might’ve even done it according to Ennis. Which is why, when Jack brings up the idea of getting a ranch together Ennis declines, saying that all they can do is sneak off together a few times a year because anything more would lead to their deaths. Not that his fears are at all irrational. When Jack went back to Joe Aguirre for a job the following summer, there was clearly homophobia at the root of why he won’t hire him again, saying that Jack and Ennis weren’t paid to leave the sheep with the dogs “while you stemmed the rose.” Furthermore, by the end of the story Jack suffers the same fate as Earl, proving Ennis’ fears were indeed accurate. Being that Ennis finds maintaining a gay relationship with Jack so hard and believes that they are damned if they do, damned if they don’t, one would think that Ennis should forget about Jack and live out his life with his wife, Alma, and their two daughters, Alma Jr. and Francine. He had seemed perfectly content, even if he was not completely successful, with his life for the first four years after his summer on Brokeback Mountain, but once he heard from Jack all of the feelings that he had came rushing back. Still he contented that he was straight. “You know, I was sitting up here all that time trying to figure out of I was-? I know I ain’t . I mean here we both got wives and kids, right? I like doing it with woman, … but ain’t nothing like this. I never had no thoughts a doin it with another guy except I sure wrang it out a hundred times thinking about you,” And adding, “That summer when we split up after we got paid out I had gut cramps so bad I pulled over and tried to puke, thought I ate something bad at that place in Dubois. Took me about a year a figure out it was that I shouldn’t let you out a my sights. Too late then by a long while.” It’s not that he doesn’t love his family, he does love his daughters and he wants to be happy with Alma but there just isn’t anything that comes close to what he feels for Jack, he even wonders if this happens to other people and how do they overcome it. Since he was unable to overcome true emotions, Ennis’ marriage falls apart. Alma had seen the kiss between Jack and her husband, and he never would do anything with her and the girls, but he would always find the time to go fishing with Jack, so she divorced Ennis and remarried. Ennis understood and didn’t have any hard feelings toward her until she accused him of having something more than friendship with “Jack Nasty.” Faced with the accusation of having a homosexual affair, true though it was, Ennis grabs Alma by the arm and begins hurting her and yelling at her. This is the woman that he had, at one time, planned to share his life with and he can’t even manage to tell her of the love that he has for, and with Jack. No matter how much inner anguish Ennis has, he still manages to go up to the mountains with Jack for years, though he does seem to try to avoid it sometimes. On what turns out to be their last week together, in May 1983, the two men have an argument because Ennis says he won’t be able to get together for a week in August as they had planned and blames it on work. This might be indeed the case but Jack reasons “you used to come away easy. It’s like seein the pope now,” and though Ennis isn’t young and can’t just keep quitting jobs when he can’t get off to see Jack the way he had in the past, that coupled with Ennis inner conflict makes me think that he might’ve been trying to stay away from Jack in order to try and salvage a “normal” existence and trick his mind into believing he’s “not queer”. However if that is indeed the case, Ennis can’t mask his feelings, even during the argument; soon the conversation turns to Ennis wanting to know weather or not Jack goes to Mexico to have sex with hustlers. When Jack says yes Ennis ranges on, with a mixture of jealousy and fear, “I got a say this to you one time, Jack…all them things I don’t know could get you killed if I should come to know them.” When Jack fires back that they could’ve had a wonderful life together but Ennis kept that from happening, “then you ask me about Mexico and tell me you’ll kill me for needing it and not hardly never getting it.” And finishes up by saying that he wishes that he could get over him, Ennis falls down to his knees heartbroken. The love he feels for Jack lives on beyond Jack’s death, he even goes to Jack’s parents house and offers to take the ashes up to Brokeback Mountain. However I feel it is only after that meeting, and subsequently finding Jacks shirt hung over his own shirt, that Ennis finally begins to feel comfortable with their relationship. He buys a postcard with a picture of Brokeback Mountain and hangs it over the shirts in his trailer. Though he still doesn’t talk about what existed between them, he has openly acknowledged it with this display. At this time, Jack begins to appear in Ennis’ dreams because Ennis has finally allowed himself to think freely about Jack.
Anxiety the state of apprehension, physic tension or mental uneasiness caused by fear, as of danger. (The Merriam-Webster Dictionary) Many characters of the “contemporary” period are consumed by anxiety, which often results in a psychological division for the individual. One such character whose life is plagued by this type of ambivalence is Ennis del Mar in Brokeback Mountain. When Ennis met Jack Twist in the summer of 1963, there was a clear connection between the two men that defied any boundaries that society set forth. Even before their first sexual encounter, Ennis had come up behind Jack and held him against his chest, humming quietly and swaying in front of the fire, and after there first awkward, yet intensely passionate night together, it was evident that the men would never be able to quit each other. They never talked about the sex, let it happen, at first only in the tent at night, then in the full daylight with the hot sun striking down, and at evening in the fire glow, quick, rough, laughing and snorting, no lack of noises, but saying not a goddamn word except Ennis said, “I’m not no queer,” and jack jumped in with “Me neither. A one shot thing. Nobody’s business but ours.” Indeed it isn’t anybody’s business but theirs and, alone with only each other and the animals, they were free to love without fear, but in the real world-the world they return to the end of the summer- people tend to pay attention to other people’s business and that’s what concerns Ennis. Ennis’ fear of “being queer”, or having his sexuality being found out about, goes back to his childhood when there was a couple of men, Earl and Rich, who lived together not far from Ennis until tragedy struck. One day Earl was found dead in an irrigation ditch; whoever had done it had taken a tire iron to him, tied him up, and dragged him around by his genitalia until his penis was pulled off. Not only had Ennis heard about this hideous act, but his father had also taken him and his brother to see it and laughed about it, might’ve even done it according to Ennis. Which is why, when Jack brings up the idea of getting a ranch together Ennis declines, saying that all they can do is sneak off together a few times a year because anything more would lead to their deaths. Not that his fears are at all irrational. When Jack went back to Joe Aguirre for a job the following summer, there was clearly homophobia at the root of why he won’t hire him again, saying that Jack and Ennis weren’t paid to leave the sheep with the dogs “while you stemmed the rose.” Furthermore, by the end of the story Jack suffers the same fate as Earl, proving Ennis’ fears were indeed accurate. Being that Ennis finds maintaining a gay relationship with Jack so hard and believes that they are damned if they do, damned if they don’t, one would think that Ennis should forget about Jack and live out his life with his wife, Alma, and their two daughters, Alma Jr. and Francine. He had seemed perfectly content, even if he was not completely successful, with his life for the first four years after his summer on Brokeback Mountain, but once he heard from Jack all of the feelings that he had came rushing back. Still he contented that he was straight. “You know, I was sitting up here all that time trying to figure out of I was-? I know I ain’t . I mean here we both got wives and kids, right? I like doing it with woman, … but ain’t nothing like this. I never had no thoughts a doin it with another guy except I sure wrang it out a hundred times thinking about you,” And adding, “That summer when we split up after we got paid out I had gut cramps so bad I pulled over and tried to puke, thought I ate something bad at that place in Dubois. Took me about a year a figure out it was that I shouldn’t let you out a my sights. Too late then by a long while.” It’s not that he doesn’t love his family, he does love his daughters and he wants to be happy with Alma but there just isn’t anything that comes close to what he feels for Jack, he even wonders if this happens to other people and how do they overcome it. Since he was unable to overcome true emotions, Ennis’ marriage falls apart. Alma had seen the kiss between Jack and her husband, and he never would do anything with her and the girls, but he would always find the time to go fishing with Jack, so she divorced Ennis and remarried. Ennis understood and didn’t have any hard feelings toward her until she accused him of having something more than friendship with “Jack Nasty.” Faced with the accusation of having a homosexual affair, true though it was, Ennis grabs Alma by the arm and begins hurting her and yelling at her. This is the woman that he had, at one time, planned to share his life with and he can’t even manage to tell her of the love that he has for, and with Jack. No matter how much inner anguish Ennis has, he still manages to go up to the mountains with Jack for years, though he does seem to try to avoid it sometimes. On what turns out to be their last week together, in May 1983, the two men have an argument because Ennis says he won’t be able to get together for a week in August as they had planned and blames it on work. This might be indeed the case but Jack reasons “you used to come away easy. It’s like seein the pope now,” and though Ennis isn’t young and can’t just keep quitting jobs when he can’t get off to see Jack the way he had in the past, that coupled with Ennis inner conflict makes me think that he might’ve been trying to stay away from Jack in order to try and salvage a “normal” existence and trick his mind into believing he’s “not queer”. However if that is indeed the case, Ennis can’t mask his feelings, even during the argument; soon the conversation turns to Ennis wanting to know weather or not Jack goes to Mexico to have sex with hustlers. When Jack says yes Ennis ranges on, with a mixture of jealousy and fear, “I got a say this to you one time, Jack…all them things I don’t know could get you killed if I should come to know them.” When Jack fires back that they could’ve had a wonderful life together but Ennis kept that from happening, “then you ask me about Mexico and tell me you’ll kill me for needing it and not hardly never getting it.” And finishes up by saying that he wishes that he could get over him, Ennis falls down to his knees heartbroken. The love he feels for Jack lives on beyond Jack’s death, he even goes to Jack’s parents house and offers to take the ashes up to Brokeback Mountain. However I feel it is only after that meeting, and subsequently finding Jacks shirt hung over his own shirt, that Ennis finally begins to feel comfortable with their relationship. He buys a postcard with a picture of Brokeback Mountain and hangs it over the shirts in his trailer. Though he still doesn’t talk about what existed between them, he has openly acknowledged it with this display. At this time, Jack begins to appear in Ennis’ dreams because Ennis has finally allowed himself to think freely about Jack.
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