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Chapter 25
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
Not much is going right in the life of July Johnson, Fort Smith’s sheriff, but he tries not to complain. He recently married a woman named Elmira and, although he’s become friends with her son, Joe Boot, his wife spends most of her time complaining about July’s failures. He got jaundice in Missouri, where he’d gone to testify in a trial. That’s where he was when Jake Spoon shot his brother, the town’s dentist-mayor. July feels stuck between his sister-in-law, Peach, who wants him to hang her husband’s so-called murderer, and his new wife, who doesn’t want him to leave. He wishes his deputy, Roscoe Brown, had taken care of things by arresting Jake when it happened, but Roscoe is barely capable of handling the town’s 80-year-old and mostly harmless resident drunkard.
The story shifts back in time by several weeks and north-east by several hundred miles to Fort Smith, Arkansas, focusing on July Johnson, the brother of the man Jake accidentally shot. In his own estimation, July is a victim of circumstance, and he would like to blame bad luck for his current trials. But it’s also clear almost immediately that much of his pain comes from his own decisions (or lack thereof). His marriage isn’t happy, yet he picked his own wife. Peach bullies him because of his inactivity. Only the attack of jaundice (likely from a hepatitis infection caused by unclean drinking water in an era before modern sanitation) seems like chance.
Themes
Roscoe feels confused about the whole affair. He liked Jake much better than he liked the former mayor. Plus, the shooting was an accident. But Peach doesn’t see it that way, and on this particular day, she presents herself at what passes for Fort Smith’s jail (the single cell doesn’t even have a proper lock) to harangue July yet again about setting out after Jake, notwithstanding that he's friends with two of the most famous former Texas Rangers there are—Call and McCrae.
Roscoe’s reaction speaks to his own character—he’s not very motivated, and he doesn’t seem to be very bright or a good judge of character. But it also reinforces Jake’s charm, which works on men and women alike. Roscoe accepts the decrees of fate and doesn’t want to expend more energy than necessary, like going after a famous man and his capable friends. He’s happy with his quiet life in quaint Fort Smith.
Themes
