Brokeback Mountain

Here are a few questions to ponder on "Brokeback Mountain." Posting a comment is optional, but be sure to think these over before class.

1. What landscapes do Jack and Ennis inhabit, and how do those landscapes correspond to their lives at different points in the story? Why don't they ever return to Brokeback Mountain?

2. Why does Proulx make Ennis, and not Jack, the main character?

3. Think about how Proulx uses place names, and what, in a larger sense, these Western place-names tell us about the culture. Some of the places are real (Riverton, Lightning Flat), some are semi-real (there is apparently a place named Brokenback Peak), and some are fictional. Look at the list at the bottom of p. 273.

4. This is one of a few accounts of American boyhood/young manhood/coming-of-age-in-the-wilderness stories we have read (including "The Bear" and "Ceremony," and bits of Leopold too). You've certainly encountered others in your own personal reading/film/TV watching, along with other stories of life in the West, on the frontier. Do we see this story either fitting into or resisting any particular American literary or cultural tradition?

5. As you read, pay particular attention to Proulx's language and her pacing. How does she use sounds? What kind of vocabulary does she use? At what points does her language seem to speed up, and at what points slow down, and why? Bring an example of a particular phrase or sentence that seems striking to you.