Kade Terry

Professor Drake

Survey of West World Lit

March 12th, 2020

Tragic Heroes In ​Brokeback Mountain

Like all modern works of entertainment, it's hard to define ​Brokeback Mountain ​in simple

terms. Yes, it could be called a tragedy because of the death of one of the two leads, but the

ending of the movie is very hopeful in its presentation and tone. In the same way, it is difficult to

categorize the two leads Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist into the realm of tragic heroes.

Regardless of difficulty, this essay will be doing just that. In order to decide whether or not Ennis

and Jack are tragic heroes, I will be using a couple of terms from literary theory, and examples

from several Greek Tragedies and historical epics. First I will define the traits of a tragic hero,

then I will go into how Ennis and Jack embody these traits, and finally, explain why I think Jack

is a tragic hero, while Ennis is not.

First, let's get the fun part out of the way and define some terms. Mainly, I will be

focusing on three qualities of a tragic hero. The first quality is the hero’s Hamartia, or his/her

fatal flaw. This flaw can be something like Achilles need for honor, or Oedipous’s intelligence.

This fatal flaw is a fundamental part of who they are, and is what ultimately leads to their fall. A

tragic hero’s Hamartia, can also be their Hubris. Hubris is the second quality of a tragic hero, and

is defined as simply “Too much of a good thing”(Drake, Hubris lecture). In the case of Achilles,

a need for honor can be seen as a very noble thing. However, this need brought him back to the

battlefield again and again, even when he knew “If I stay here and fight, I’ll never return home”
(Lit of West Civ, 225). His hubris caused him to stay, because he wanted his glory to be

“...undying forever”(Lit of West Civ, 225). Technically Achilles is an epic hero, but I still

believe he gives a great example of Hubris turning into Hamartia. The third quality has more to

do with the events of the tragic hero’s story. This is that the hero must rise up to meet his fate,

and then experience a “fall”. This does not mean the hero has to die, they just have to lose

everything in an ironic fashion. Oedipus was smart, but to the point that he refused to be wrong,

and was blind to the truth of what he had done. Repeatedly the blind prophet Teresias told him

“You killed the man whose killer you now hunt” (List of West Civ, 677) and Oedipus only

responded with anger and threats After blinding himself figuratively for so long, he “..in my

wretchedness, struck me (himself)..”(Lit of West Civ, 701) and blinded himself literally.. He rose

to meet fate and stabbed his own eyes out with his wife and mother’s brooches. He was then

banished from the city for his crimes, falling down to the lowest of the low. This is a great

example of the ironic fall of a tragic hero, as his punishment for not seeing the truth, was to

become blind until he died.

I want to start with Jack Twist first, as of the two, he is the closest to the idea of a tragic

hero. We’ll start with his Hubris which, just like Oedipus and Achilles, turned into his Hamartia.

Between Ennis and him, Jack was much more willing to act out his homosexual desires. These

desires are not inherently bad, but the location he lived in plus the time period didn’t exactly

work in his favor. Jack repeatedly had relations with different male partners, from members of

his community, to people in Mexico. These relationships happened too often, and became too

much of a good thing, I.e. hubris. Ennis was much more detached from his desires, and they only

got in the way of his life when Jack was around. Jack’s Hubris then became his fatal flaw, as the
frequency of his desires caused him to somehow get caught, and reveal his sexuality.

Admittedly, the movie is kind of vague on what happened here. Jack’s wife tells Ennis that he

died while changing a tire that exploded, but during this explanation we see flashes of Jack being

beaten by a group of men. To me, it was unclear if this was Jack’s wife seeing the flashes, or if

Ennis was worried that Jack had been killed. I’ve chosen the latter, as it makes much more sense

when looking at Jack as a tragic hero. His fatal flaw was that he was unable to resist his disires,

and that the place he lived in was horrifically homophobic.

The final trait of a tragic hero I defined was the structure of their arc, and how they rise to

the challenge fate gave them. We don’t get to see Jack’s final moments, but the way he lived his

life up until his death shows how again and again he refused to deny what he felt. In a way, he

was constantly rising to meet the fate he was given. The only thing that conflicts with the themes

of a tragic hero is their fate being ironic in some way. Jack’s fate isn’t really ironic, it was

something that they both knew could happen, but never expected it to happen to them. Earlier in

the film, Ennis told a story of how two men lived together on a farm. At one point, one of the

men was beaten to death and left in a ditch. Ennis’s father made him and his brother look at the

corpse as a warning. Ennis and Jack knew what would happen if they got caught, and that's

exactly what occurred. Irony is the exact opposite of what is expected, so Jack’s death doesn’t fit

here.

Ennis has his own Hubris, but it is much different then Jack’s, and doesn’t turn into a

fatal flaw. Ennis’s hubris is very simple, and more relatable in the modern era. This hubris is that

Ennis works a lot, and his relationships suffer because of it. Often throughout the movie, he

would choose to continue working, rather then going to see Jack, or even to have his daughters
stay over for the once a month he gets to see them. This had the potential to develop into a fatal

flaw, and create some sort of great fall in his life, but it never got to that point. Before it could

develop that far, Jack died due to his Hamartia. The loss of someone close to him made Ennis

evaluate his relationships, and we see this change at the end of the movie. When Ennis’s

daughter asks him to come to her wedding, he makes the decision to possibly lose his job to be

there. He sheds his hubris, and becomes a better person for it. Ennis also does not experience an

ironic fall. He gets divorced, but that seems more to be something he wanted later in the

marriage, rather then something tragic that happened to him. Most of the movie, Ennis doesn’t

have much to lose. He’s a simple cowboy who works on farms, and lives month to month on that

income. To fall, you would have to have gotten somewhere in the first place.

Using this information, I think it becomes pretty easy to see who the tragic heroes are in

this movie. Starting with Jack Twist, who I will compare to Oedipus to show why i believe he’s a

tragic hero. From the beginning, Jack had sexual desires that he couldn’t resist. Oedipus was

doomed from the beginning, fated to one day sleep with his mother and kill his father. In this

regard, Jack is similar, as his place of birth is what doomed him. If he had been born with the

same sexual desires in a different part of the country, he may have lived. Instead, he was born in

Texas, and into a hyper-masculine lifestyle that didn’t allow his sexuality. While Oedipus was

willfully ignorant, Jack was constantly taking risks in order to take part in his newfound

sexuality. This Hubris became his Hamartia, creating the tragic circumstances that led to his

death. Though there was no irony in his death, I believe the fact that his sexuality doomed him

from the start is what makes him a tragic hero.

 Ennis on the other hand, is not a tragic hero at all. His main hubris, his emotional

disconnect from his loved ones due to working, is resolved by the end of the film. In fact, I

would compare Ennis to an epic hero, rather than a tragic one. In particular, I want to compare

Ennis to the epic hero Gilgamesh. Ennis is willing to fight back against people who anger him,

which can be a good thing. The hubris here is that Ennis gets angered quickly, and will fight just

to work off his emotions. What really reminds me of Gilgamesh however, is how the death of

Jack affects Ennis. Near the beginning of the Epic of Gilgamesh is when Gilgamesh first meets

Enkidu, a wild man who becomes his greatest friend and ally. In fact, the gods created Enkidu to

tame Gilgamesh’s own hubris, which was to “...leave no son to his father!” (Lit of Wes Civ, 60)

and “...leave no girl to her mother!” (Lit of Wes Civ, 60). Basically, Gilgamesh liked to have sex

with anyone that got near him. The gods created Enkidu to “...Let them contend with each other,

that Uruk may have peace.” (Lit of Wes Civ, 60). Their friendship mirrors one scene in

Brokeback Mountain ​in particular, where Gilgamesh and Enkidu “...grappled each other, holding

fast like wrestlers' ' (Lit of Wes Civ, 68). In the movie, Ennis and Jack also fight and wrestle

each other, to the point of causing the other to bleed. The death of Enkidu, however, shows the

greatest similarity between Ennis and Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh realizes that one day he could die,

after seeing his close friend die. This changes him, and drives him to become immortal. Ennis

also goes through this. Once Jack dies, Ennis realizes how his work had kept them from being

together as much as they could have. He changes for the better, and decides to miss work to go to

his daughter’s wedding, shedding his hubris. Ennis’s story never got the chance to become

tragic, instead he became an epic hero by overcoming his hubris.

 It took a lot of information to define these two characters into categories of tragic and

epic heroes. First, I defined what the three qualities of a tragic hero were. These were Hubris,

Hamartia, and the need for an ironic fall from grace. Second, I explained how Ennis and Jack did

or did not embody these traits. Finally, I used all this information to explain why they were, or

were not a tragic hero. In the end, I decided that Jack was a tragic hero like Oedipus, while Ennis

was simply closer to being an epic hero like Gilgamesh.