Brokeback Mountain characters

Appears from the start

A young ranch hand from Wyoming, orphaned early and accustomed to hard work, poverty, and keeping his feelings private. In 1963 he takes a seasonal job tending sheep on Brokeback Mountain, where isolation brings him into an intimacy he has never imagined openly.

Appears from the start

A young rodeo rider from Lightning Flat who hires on for the same summer sheep operation as Ennis. More talkative and more willing to imagine alternatives to their difficult lives, he forms a bond with Ennis that neither man can fit into the future expected of him.

Appears from the start

The rancher who employs Ennis and Jack to manage his sheep on Brokeback Mountain. He gives the men separate duties and expects them to follow grazing rules designed to keep the operation out of official view.

Appears from the start

Ennis's fiancée and later wife, who builds a modest household with him and raises their two daughters. She wants ordinary family stability but is left to interpret the distance and unexplained absences in her marriage.

Appears from the start

A Texas rodeo performer and the daughter of a prosperous farm-equipment dealer. She marries Jack and works in her father's business while they raise a son, providing a materially secure life that does not answer Jack's deeper restlessness.

Appears from the start

The elder daughter of Ennis and Alma. As an adult she remains in contact with her solitary father and approaches him about her wedding, offering him a chance to take part in her life despite his long habit of withdrawal.

Appears from the start

The younger daughter of Ennis and Alma, raised amid her parents' financial strain and worsening marriage.

Appears from the start

Jack and Lureen's son, whose upbringing and future become one of the recurring subjects of disagreement within their household.

Appears from the start

Jack's stern father, who continues working the poor family ranch at Lightning Flat. He judges his son's unfinished plans harshly and meets Ennis after Jack's death.

Appears from the start

Jack's mother, a quiet and religious woman living at the Lightning Flat ranch. She receives Ennis with restrained kindness when he visits after Jack's death and understands the importance of what he finds in Jack's room.

Appears from the start

A married ranch foreman whom Jack meets in Texas. Their acquaintance enters Jack's plans at a time when he has become frustrated by Ennis's refusal to build a shared life.