Essay Questions

Compare and contrast the characters of Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist.

Both Ennis and Jack are cowboys: men who live in a very hypermasculine environment where they must hide their attraction to one another in order to remain employed. They are strongly attracted to one another, however both men marry women and father children with their wives.

Personality-wise Ennis and Jack can be regarded as foils for one another. Ennis is quiet, reserved, and socially awkward. He is deeply conflicted about his homosexuality and his attraction to Jack, who is his only male lover. Lacking strong social support due to having lost his parents at an early age, Ennis struggles financially. Jack is assertive, outgoing, and charming. He has several male lovers and wants more of a relationship with Ennis than Ennis is willing or able to give. Although he comes from a family of modest means, Jack marries well and enjoys more financial security than Ennis. Although he understands the need to hide his homosexual activity, he does not believe he is doing anything wrong.

What factors prevented Jack and Ennis from staying together?

Jack and Ennis live and work in an environment where homosexuality, especially for men, is taboo. They believe, correctly, that if they became known as a couple they would lose work opportunities. Indeed, the man who hires them to herd sheep on Brokeback Mountain sees them fighting, or at least rolling around on the ground together, and correctly deduces that one of the reasons the herd of sheep got mixed up with another owner's herd is because the two cowboys allowed their attraction to one another to distract them from their work.

One of Ennis's biggest fears is that he, or Jack, or both men, would be targets of violence if their sexual relationship became known. Early in the movie, Ennis describes a hate crime in which a gay man was murdered. In Ennis's mind, not being openly together helps to keep both men safe. He wants to protect Jack by hiding the relationship, and he also wants to protect himself. He's concerned that other people might be able to somehow tell or guess that he is attracted to men, and he is unwilling to be "out" or openly involved with another man.

Prior to meeting Jack, Ennis became committed to a woman named Alma, whom he marries. His entire reason for working on Brokeback Mountain was to earn enough money to buy a house with her. His time with Jack is not enough to convince him to change his plans, and he follows through with the marriage to Alma. Later, after he and Alma have two daughters, he struggles to support them financially but does not want to leave them. He is mostly satisfied with occasional vacations with Jack, and returns to his family the rest of the time.

Jack marries, although he does not seem to have as much of an emotional bond with his wife Lureen as Ennis has with Alma. He also finds comfort in the arms of other men he meets while traveling as a bull rider. Compared to Ennis, Jack does well financially chiefly because his wife's family is well off. Lureen controls the money in the family, and without her Jack would be just as broke as Ennis. Jack would be willing to take that risk if he and Ennis could be together, however Ennis is not willing.

Compare and contrast Alma and Lureen.

Alma and Lureen both marry cowboys who are carrying on an illicit homosexual relationship with one another. Neither woman realizes it at the time. Both women bear children: Lureen has one son with Jack, and Alma has two daughters with Ennis.

Alma is depicted as a simple country woman, not particularly intelligent or well educated. She is a devoted mother but is frustrated by the lack of money in the household: Ennis doesn't earn much, and neither can she. She begins to suspect Ennis is cheating on her, especially when he returns from a "fishing" trip with Jack without having opened his tacke box. When she finally catches Ennis kissing Jack, she is shocked and disgusted enough to divorce him.

Lureen is depicted as being intelligent and educated, from a relatively wealthy family. She is not a particularly involved mother to her son, and has a distant relationship with Jack, who travels regularly as a rodeo rider. Jack, unlike Ennis, is very promiscuous with other men. He also doesn't hide it well. His father, for example, mentions some of Jack's other "friends" he brought up to the farm. So it is not entirely implausible that Lureen eventually found out about Jack and Ennis's relationship. Her lack of emotion when describing Jack's death can be taken as an indication that she is lying about the circumstances.

How did Jack really die? Is Lureen's version correct, or is Ennis right? Find evidence from the movie to support your position.

Answer #1: Jack died exactly the way Lureen said he did, in an accident when a tire came off its rim causing a head injury that became fatal when Jack drowned in his own blood. Although it would be difficult to actually inflate a tire to such a high pressure by the side of the road, for some reason it actually happened. The scene in which Jack was beaten to death was a figment of Ennis's imagination. Earlier in the movie, Ennis describes a gay couple he knew who were murdered simply for being gay. Losing Jack, especially to violence, is one of Ennis's worst fears and it is one reason why Ennis is not willing to openly acknowledge his relationship with Jack. When Ennis hears of Jack's death, his imagination conjures up a scene that plays on his worst possible fear.

Answer #2: Lureen is lying, and the scene showing Jack being attacked is not a figment of Ennis's imagination. It's what actually happened. Lureen describes what happened in a flat, emotionless tone that suggests she's not particularly upset. She doesn't express anger or resentment at the faulty tire or its manufacturer, the way a widow might ordinarily be expected to do. Lureen has a long history of ignoring, overlooking, or lying about the facts: like Jack's father, she is aware of Jack's many "friends", of which Ennis is only one. But to the end she maintains the fiction.

Answer #3: Lureen is lying, the scene showing Jack being attacked is real, but Lureen knows more about the reason for the attack than she lets on. Her father dislikes Jack, her mother knows what's going on, Jack's father is perfectly aware that Jack has male lovers, and the situation has been building up for years. The story about the tire is a cover-up.