Well, I'm glad there are some people taking up for Ennis. I DO think Ennis defines his boundaries because of his fears, but all in all, I think Ennis was by far the more honest of the two characters. As already stated, Ennis never leads Jack on in regards to the terms of their relationship. In fact, he tells Jack this more than once. Remember the line, "I already told you, it ain't gonna be that way. I'm stuck with what I got." He then goes on to tell Jack, "Two guys living together? No. We can get together every once in awhile way the hell out in the back of nowhere..." And this is the way Ennis defined the relationship for Jack and the way it was for 20 years. Ennis never, not once, led Jack to expect anything more than that.
Remember Jack was the romantic. Lureen says so on the phone with Ennis. "But knowing Jack, it might be some pretend place where the bluebirds sing and there is a whiskey spring." Jack's father says so when he tells Ennis, "But like most a Jack's ideas it never come to pass." Proulx makes sure we understand the heart of a romantic beats in Jack. Even though Ennis was always upfront with Jack and very clear of his boundaries, Jack still dreams a romantic's dreams. I'm sorry, but I personally think that a partner so clearly defining his boundaries is the opposite of any sort of emotional abuse. Ennis gave Jack everything he told him he would. He even told him, "ain't no reins on this one" signaling to Jack that as long as he was willing to accept the limits, then their relationship could go on forever.
The other thing that no one seems to mention is that Jack certainly had other options with Ennis and with his own life. Why does Jack wait four years to find Ennis?
--He tried the very next year when he went back to Aguirre's office to look for work, and for Ennis.
Why doesn't Jack ever divorce Lureen and move closer to Ennis so maybe they can spend more time together?
--He offers to do just that to live with Ennis, but Ennis refuses.
Why is it that Ennis always has to give up his life in order to be with Jack? Ennis quits his jobs, so they can spend time together. Jack accepts this even though he knows Ennis is poor and has a family.
--Jack only learns during their last time together that Ennis would in the past quit his job to go away with him. Ennis says he can't do it to be with him in August because he can't quit jobs anymore. However, we learn later that he
can do it for love, as he decides to do for Alma Jr.'s wedding.
If Jack lived in Wyoming they could spend more time together and do it on Ennis' normal days off, so they could see one another without Ennis quitting the jobs.
--Ennis says they can only get together a few times a year. His paranoia was such that it would not let him do more even if Jack were nearby. After all, he sends Jack away without so much as a kiss when he comes by after learning of the divorce even though they could have met at a motel for a few hours--before or after Ennis had taken the girls back to Alma. Jack certainly could have waited a few days; he was expecting to be there for some time anyway. But Ennis doesn't show so much as a hint of interest in that. What we see here is that Ennis, far from always accommodating Jack, would only see Jack on his own terms and according to his own plans. It caused Jack great pain and could so easily have been avoided.
Jack asks Ennis to move to Texas away from his children.
--Jack suggests more than once that they take a place by themselves. It's clear from the scene with Ennis and Jack's parents that Jack had contemplated their taking over his family's place. Jack's father says of Jack: "'Ennis del Mar,' he used a say, 'I'm goin a bring him up here one a these days and we'll lick this damn ranch into shape.' He had some half-baked idea the two a you was goin a move up here, build a log cabin and help me run this ranch and bring it up.'" However, Ennis continues his refusals even to consider their being together more than a week at a time a few times a year. This eliminates another possibilty that would have been so much better for Jack than what they did: Jack's staying the whole summer at his folks' place and visiting Ennis in the evenings and weekends.
Jack throws a fit because Ennis can't get time off a job he needs to keep (to pay child support) even though Jack stays in a cushy situation 1200 miles away where he has no financial worries and can take off when he wants. Jack tells Ennis he wants to quit him, even though we never hear Ennis make such a nasty comment to Jack.
--Nothing nasty from Ennis? Jack says he wishes he could quit Ennis
after Ennis has threatened to kill him. The threat comes because he doesn't want Jack to have sex with any other man but him partly out of extreme jealousy, partly out of his need to continue in his self-deception about his sexuality. Ennis wants Jack to deny his own deep needs and to live just the sort of life he leads--and be satisfied with that.
Jack pressures Ennis to give him more than Ennis can give to him. Jack shows a willingness to toss aside his son for Ennis, but Ennis refuses to cut his daughters from his life, even for Jack.
--Jack pushes and tries to guide Ennis, no doubt. But such pressure does have a positive effect on Ennis, however slow it may be. He needs to be pushed and led in order to change and develop. If Jack hadn't guided Ennis' hand that first night in the tent on Brokeback, they might never have loved each other.
In my view, Jack always demands and demands from Ennis in spite of what Ennis makes clear he can give, and really, even though he says he is willling to do so, never gives up anything much in return. Who is it that loses the most due to this relationship (not counting the emotional hardship which affects both of them equally)? It ain't Jack Twist.
--Jack gives up his chance of a permanent relationship with someone else in order to stick with the possibility of Ennis. I'd say that's giving up quite a lot.
We even see this on the mountain. Who is it that won't eat beans? Who hates sleeping with the sheep in the pup tent that smells like cat piss? Who insists on illegally killing an elk? It is always Jack wanting more. And who takes care of him? Ennis. Throughout the movie, Jack always wants more, and Ennis gives him all that he possibly can while remaining true to the last part of himself he can (a good cowboy and a father who provides for his children). Jack would take that from of him as well if Ennis would let him.
--I think that's very unfair to Jack. What makes you think that Jack would want to take that from him? And it's not as if Ennis is raising his children. He says he only sees them a weekend a month. That's certainly an arrangement that Jack should have no difficulty accommodating. As for child support, nothing that Jack suggests would jeopardize that.
Don't get me wrong. I love the character of Jack Twist, and I feel his need and his pain. I also understand the romantic and the dreamer who often finds the dream and the wish safer and more secure than the hard, cold reality. I don't begrudge Jack for what he wanted, nor for what Ennis gives up for him. However, in my opinion, to suggest that Jack is a poor victim who has to endure a lifetime of emotional abuse at the hands of Ennis is a far cry from the truth of the movie I watched and the book I read. Both of these men are victims, but not of one another. They are victims of a society that says two men can't love and can't live together and remain part of their community or remain true to the men they are supposed to be.
--This I agree with wholeheartedly.
