Brokeback Mountain

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Brokeback Mountain Critique This essay is based off a critique of Annie Proulx’s short story “Brokeback Mountain”, entitled Understanding the Complexity of Love in Brokeback Mountain: An Analysis of the Film and Short Story. This essay was written by Jane Rose and Joanne Urschel. It was published March 1,2007 by: Purdue University North Central Westville, in The Journal of Men’s Studies, Vol. 14, No 2, Spring 2006 pages 247-251. This text focuses on the relationship between Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, and examines what made their love for each other so complicated, untraditional, and melancholy. Rose and Urschel focus on the effects that both characters’ fathers had on their life, and how the negative impact that having abusive parents …show more content…

While I don't agree with the severity that Rose and Urschel crique Ennis’s father, I do think there are strong similarities between how both Ennis and Sarty were treated by their fathers growing up. As well as Jack and his father. As the authors illustrated Jack's father didn't believe that he was good enough, “he is hostile and cold to his son (Rose, Urschel 249)”, Sarty’s father can be described the same. After Sarty gets hit in the head and knocked to the ground outside the courthouse “his father’s hand jerked him back, the harsh cold voice speaking above him: “Go get in the wagon”(faulkner p.3). This is one one the instances sarty’s father lacks any care or concern regarding Sarty’s well being. Ennis, Jack, and Sarty all are deeply affected by the actions of their fathers, and if one fast forward Sarty’s life, he will probably also present the same characteristics that Rose and Urschel site as to explain why Ennis and Jack couldn't be …show more content…

Rose and Urschel point out “both struggle to fulfill the lives of cowboys in 1960s Wyoming(p. 249)” and “Ennis opens up to Jack… This marks Ennis’s potential to be more communicative and close with another person (p. 249)”. These quotes show the friendship and closeness that the men develop with each other. In Emerson’s “Friendship” he writes “A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere…. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal…(p. 44). Ennis and Jack do have the type of relationship that Emerson describes in the context of a friendship. In addition I feel both Ennis and Jack share transcendental characteristics in their life, going off into nature, finding who they are, and if only in seclusion putting the needs and want of their own ahead of their

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