Discussion Topic
Ennis's Dominant Perspective and Relationship Tensions in "Brokeback Mountain"
Summary:
In "Brokeback Mountain," the focus on Ennis over Jack highlights Ennis's repression and control over their relationship, reflecting societal constraints of the 1960s. Ennis's perspective allows readers to engage emotionally with the story's tragedy, emphasizing his fears and regrets. The characters are more threatened by societal norms than by each other's relationships with women. Ennis's difficulty in confronting Jack about other men underscores the era's reticence and the impact of their hidden love on their lives and those around them.
In "Brokeback Mountain," why does the storyline focus more on Ennis than Jack?
"Brokeback Mountain," being a short story, can only encompass so much, and Proulx wisely sticks primarily to Ennis's point of view. This is a story of forbidden love between two men in the hyper-masculinized West, but it is largely Ennis's story: he is, for example, the only one of the two alive at the end. It is the story of the way his repression bent the relationship and his regrets over what could have been.
Ennis's more repressed personality becomes a better vehicle for telling the story because it allows Proulx to pull back from Jack's emotional intensity and dreams. Ennis's control of the narrative (it is omniscient, so he is not entirely in control, but it is mostly his story) mirrors Ennis's control of the relationship with Jack: Ennis is the one who puts the brakes on it, allowing it to go only so far. He is...
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the one whose sense of fear of what might happens robs the couple of living their dream, even for a short time. He is the one who has to live with the loss and the regrets that arise from his lover's death.
Ennis's emotional restraint's chief value is that it pulls him away from the story—by telling it in his detached voice, Proulx leaves readers with room to experience their own emotions. Proulx is following a good rule of thumb for writing a tragic story—let the facts of the story stand on their own.
An example of this comes at end. If Ennis swamped us by being a dramatic, he would crowd out our emotional response. However, when he visits Jack's parents and goes to Jack's room and sees his shirt hanging the closet, we feel the emotional punch of that in a way we wouldn't if a less repressed character were telling the story.
In Brokeback Mountain, are Ennis and Jack threatened by each other's relationships with women? Why is it hard for Ennis to ask Jack about other men in Mexico?
Much of the story of Brokeback Mountain needs to be understood within the context of the time in which it takes place and the changes that have occurred in society since then.
In 1963, the two men, Ennis and Jack, are much more threatened by the social constraints of the era than by each other's relationships with women. Gay men were virtually always closeted, and the special irony of Brokeback Mountain is that these two outwardly give the appearance of "tough guys" who would be stereotypically thought of as heterosexual. In the film version, at the point when the men first part from one another, they hardly say a word. They're clearly embarrassed by their own situation, which, again, is a sign of the times.
This overall reticence is one of the reasons that the question of Jack's relationships with other men is problematic. What is perhaps not surprising, however, is that because in today's world things have changed so much, few people comment as much on the women characters in the story and the extent to which they are at least inadvertently victimized by the deceptions taking place. When Jack reappears, Ennis rushes down to the street to see him, completely forgetting that their passionate embrace might be seen (as it is) by his wife, Alma. The whole situation, however, is the result of the way gay people at the time were forced to deny their feelings, often using heterosexual relationships as a cover.