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Chapter 14
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Lonesome Dove, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
American Mythology
Family
Luck, Fate, and Chance
The Good Life
The Meaning of Masculinity
Feminine Strength
Summary
Analysis
In town, Dish quickly heads to the Dry Bean, leaving Deets to guard the herd. This doesn’t bother Deets; he just settles in to guard the horses and watch the moonrise. Deets loves the moon, which sometimes hangs so large over the south Texas plains he thinks he could prop a ladder against it and climb on for a ride. He also fears its mysterious nature, which he associates with Indigenous people.
This chapter gives readers one of their few moments of insight into Deets’s character. He demonstrates the reliability that Call appreciates, even as he seems more like Gus temperamentally, taking the opportunity to find (and enjoy) peace and beauty where he can. The fantasy of climbing on the moon, however, suggests a painful lack of education at the very least and may also reflect or participate in white supremacist caricatures of Black people’s ignorance and superstition.
Themes
In the saloon, Dish finds Lorena, local cowhand Jasper Fant, and Xavier Wanz waiting for a fourth person so they can start a card game. Only Lorena plays well. Dish’s anguish over Lorena’s disinterest distracts him; Xavier is upset about Jake’s arrival professionally (a sex worker in residence draws in customers) and personally, since Xavier himself was one of Lorena’s regular customers. As the game breaks up, Dish tells Jasper about Lorena’s involvement with Jake and suggests that he come talk to the Captain about a job with the cattle drive the following morning.
Lorena’s new relationship with Jake upsets everyone else at the card table, suggesting the alarming power women seem to wield over men. Yet, this also implicates the sexism of late 19th-century society in which all of these men seem to feel a right to possess or control Lorena simply because they are men and she is a sex worker—by implication, an object for men to use for their own pleasure, not necessarily an autonomous person in her own right.
Themes
