How we cite our quotes: (Paragraph)
Quote #7
The window looked down on the gravel road stretching south and it occurred to him that for his growing-up years that was the only road Jack knew. (144)
The road suggests a lot about Jack's childhood in a very short amount of time. The road leads away… away from his lonely house, his not-so-nice father, and the general "I'm stuck in rural Wyoming"-ness of his life. Ennis looks at it and sees where Jack's yearning comes from: that need to escape everyone else and be his own man.
Quote #8
The dried blood on the sleeve was his own blood, a gushing nosebleed on the last afternoon on the mountain when Jack, in their contortionistic grappling and wrestling, had slammed Ennis's nose hard with his knee. (145)
The blood triggers the memory and what a memory it is. Love? Pain? Both at once? It's a rich cocktail of feelings both wonderful and not-so-wonderful. It makes for a heck of a souvenir… assuming Ennis can handle the occasional grief-filled dream.
Quote #9
He pressed his face into the fabric and breathed in slowly through his mouth and nose, hoping for the faintest smoke and mountain sage and salty sweet stink of Jack but there was no real scent, only the memory of it, the imagined power of Brokeback Mountain of which nothing was left but what he held in his hands. (146)
Can you say symbol? From here on out, this shirt is how Ennis will keep the feeling of Brokeback alive, with Jack gone. It ain't much, but at least it's something.