Well hi everyone...Plagiarism...did i hear someone say plagiarism?
What did Ennis mean? I love the line because it has so many possible meanings, but regardless of Ennis' intent the line conveys his depth of feeling and his "forever" attachment to Jack. Here are some possibilities to finish the line:
"Jack, I swear I'll never forget you."
"Jack, I swear, I talk to you in my head as though you are still here."
"Jack, I swear there is no one else like you."
That was a great thread found on the net...so what do you think?
Here was my favourite reply...actually it was jeffmallory's!
After reading these posts, there is one aspect I flushed out about the "I swear" comment. Yes, true, it is Ennis saying, I swear Jack, if I could do it over again, we'd be together.
What people may be missing is what leads up to this tear-filled moment of Ennis' -- his daughter's visit. Alma Jr. easily reports her decision to wed--to which we get a thoughtful pause from Ennis and the question, "does this Kurt love you?"
What is possibly going on for Ennis is not only the surprise of hearing about his daughter’s pending marriage (an accepted public display of ones love), but more than that, he notes the simplicity of her being able to openly and publicly announce her open love for the person she deems very important in her life. Ennis is floored by this and is deeply pained at how simple for some making that lovely commitment to your love can be. He feels sadness that he was never able to have this with his only true love. It is the only time he uses the word love. It's almost as if he is saying that he loves Jack in that same moment when he asks Alma the question.
Thus, after this heartbreaking and momentous revelation for Ennis, he says to the only reminder of his only true love, "I swear Jack, I love you and I wish it could have been as simple to say that as it was for my daughter just now. I swear, I'd do it all differently now. I swear jack, I miss you."
What do you think?
Also, Proulx writes at this point when Ennis looks at the shirts & postcard:
"...
He stepped back and looked at the ensemble through a few stinging tears.
'Jack, I swear--' he said, though Jack had never asked him to swear anything and was himself not the swearing kind."
WOW - How beautiful is that? Neither of them were "the kind" to be able to say, nor knew how to say, I love you. Furthermore, Jack never actually ever asked Ennis to tell him he loved him (...had never asked him [Ennis] to swear anything...). What a terrible predicament to be in. They didn't have the vocabulary for their situation. It was so foreign to them--just as it was for Alma Sr. when she saw them kiss--it just wasn't in their paradigm of reality!