Ennis And Jack's Relationship

While the film may have lacked development of the men’s relationship with one another and how it grew to become what it was, it allowed for a different development of Ennis and Jack as individual characters. In the film, Lee expands on Ennis’s life with Alma and Jack’s life with Lureen. The story by Proulx is told primarily focusing on Ennis’ life; Lureen, Jack’s wife, is barely mentioned. In the film we get the entire backstory to them meeting and their relationship. Lureen comes from a family of money that isn’t particularly fond of Jack, Lee shows this to portray their marriage as one that is mutually beneficially but leaves both of them unsatisfied. These elements missing in Proulx’s story help characterize Jack. Lee illustrates a scene …show more content…
In the story however, Ennis is characterized as a man who acts on his internal fear on what could happen to him if he were out (he mentions how his dad would use a tire iron on him if he were still alive.) In the film however Ennis is characterized more so as a man who acts based on pressures from outside sources, not just society but his wife as well. He loves Alma and his children and has found security and stability with them that he believes would be wrong to seek out with Jack. Closeted men with wives seldom come out, author Bonnie Kaye wrote about her own personal experience and says the reason behind that is “fear- fear of losing everything that is secure in life. Lots of people live without being happy, but they trade it off for a sense of security and stability.” (cite) The relationship that is expanded in the film between Alma and Ennis allows a deeper development of not only Alma, but Ennis as well. As a viewer, you can see the pressures that exist externally that keep him from pursing a happy life with Jack, and in Proulx’s story, the main pressure that is emphasized is fear of violent negative reactions from