In 1963, two young men, Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, are hired for the summer to look after sheep at a seasonal grazing range on the fictional Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming. Unexpectedly, they form an intense emotional and sexual attachment, but have to part ways at the end of the summer. Over the next twenty years, as their separate lives play out with marriages, children, and jobs, they continue reuniting for brief liaisons on camping trips in remote settings.
Literary form
"Brokeback Mountain" is a story told by an omniscient narrator. The narrative is realistic in tone and employs description, metaphor and dialogue to examine the actions, thoughts, emotions, and motivations of its main characters. The narrative is mostly linear, apart from an introductory prologue ; the story describes events in sequence from a beginning point in time, the year 1963 when the characters are introduced, to the end of the story some 20 years later. Other than the title location and the town of Signal which is the nearest settlement to the eponymous mountain, the settings are actual locations in the United States. The characters are described in a naturalistic manner, as people living in a specific milieu. The story adheres to conventions of modern dramatic fiction; its literary devices serve to present a portrait of recognizable people in familiar situations, without supernatural or metaphysical allusions. In the two-paragraph prologue, the lead protagonist, Ennis Del Mar, awakes in his trailer at some unspecified time beyond the ending of the story. He has had a dream about Jack Twist, and over a cup of coffee he reflects on the time in 1963 when he first met Jack. The main narrative then begins with the description of the two protagonists as they were in 1963: From there, the story is an episodic examination of conflicts arising from the characters' interaction with each other and other people in their lives. The story condenses passing years and significant events into brief passages, and employs dialogue to reveal character and conflict.
Origins
Proulx said she wrote the story based on her own reflections about life in the West. Regarding the setting, Proulx stated: She mentioned once noticing a middle-aged man in a bar, who appeared to be watching only the menplaying pool, which led her to consider the life of a typical western ranch hand who might be gay. She wrote the story over a period of about six months, and went through more than sixty drafts. Working titles for the story included, "The Pleasures of Whiskey Mountain," "Bulldust Mountain," "Swill-Swallow Mountain," and "Drinkard Mountain". Proulx said her main characters of the two men affected her long after the story was published. The film version rekindled her feelings for them — an attachment that she had previously rejected. In a 1999 interview in The Missouri Review, Proulx said the notion of falling in love with fictional characters was "repugnant".
Adaptations
The film Brokeback Mountain won numerous awards, including Academy Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Original Score. It was nominated for a total of eight awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actor. Its loss of Best Picture to Crash was not generally expected, though predicted by some. Charles Wuorinen, a contemporary American composer, became interested in the story, and Proulx wrote the libretto to adapt her work. Their work was commissioned by Mortier of the New York City Opera and they started working together in 2008, completing it in 2012. The work premiered at the Teatro Real in Madrid on January 28, 2014.
Fan fiction
The film's popularity has inspired numerous viewers to write their own versions of the story and send these to Proulx. In 2008, Proulx said she wished she had never written the 1997 short story which inspired the film, because she has received so much fan fiction presenting alternative plots:
She said the authors, mostly men who claim to "understand men better than I do", often send her their works:
