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Chapter 39
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
Lorena loves travelling and could stay on the road forever. Unlike Jake, she has quite a knack for camping, especially after Deets—who checks on them every day during his scouting missions—teaches her how to make a fire and attend to the other chores Jake ignores. Jake is still sulky over her refusal to go to San Antonio. Spoiling for a fight, he criticizes her and spouts jealous fantasies about cowhands visiting her behind his back. She doesn’t dignify any of it with an answer. One day, when they’re camped near San Antonio, he rides off and leaves her, then returns a few hours later with a half-drunk bottle of whiskey. Lorena knows he meant to scare her by leaving her and then to catch her in the act by returning so suddenly. But she doesn’t fear him.
As tensions between the two of them rise, Jake behaves with more selfishness and less concern for Lorena’s safety than ever. Although she clearly doesn’t need him to help with the logistics of the trip—which she manages independently—as a single woman she’s still vulnerable to mistreatment or attack. Instead of protecting her, Jake intentionally leaves her vulnerable and then tries to catch her in the act of cheating on him. His cruel treatment highlights the hardships women faced in an era during which they were considered inferior to men. But Lorena is clearly the bigger (and braver) person of the two.
Themes
For his part, Jake feels hopelessly stuck. Lorena’s defiance irks him. He wishes he’d left her behind and just joined the drive, where at least he’d have enough cowhands to play cards with and to protect him if July Johnson comes riding in from Arkansas. He thinks about abandoning her in Austin, but he doesn’t have the heart to—he always was a sucker for a pretty face. To soothe his ruffled ego, Lorena lets him have sex with her. Afterwards, he tells her that a fortune-teller once told him he would die by hanging. He saw plenty when he was a Ranger; Call was most business-like about them. This doesn’t surprise Lorena, but Jake’s mention of Call’s relationship with Maggie does. She wonders which of the men is Newt’s father, but Jake doesn’t know.
Jake’s agitated musings on Lorena support the idea that women’s sexual allure gives them a potentially dangerous degree of control over men. Jake certainly feels powerless to resist Lorena. But at the same time, he clearly doesn’t consider her a fully-fledged person, either, or he would better respect her wishes. Instead, he fantasizes about abandoning her in Austin just like Tinkersley abandoned her in Lonesome Dove. Then, in a fit of self-pity, he tries to solicit her concern for him by invoking the idea of his impending death. Readers will have to wait to see if the fortune teller was correct or not.
Themes
