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American Mythology
Themes and Colors
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Lonesome Dove, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
All of the characters in Lonesome Dove seem to come from broken families. Janey, Lorena, Clara, and Newt are orphans; Po Campo, Augustus, and Clara all lose spouses; the sons of Po Campo and Clara and Bob die too young. Short of death, there’s also abandonment: Bolivar leaves his family in Mexico, and Elmira runs away from July and Joe in Arkansas. Even Gus ran away from his family to go west when he was boy. These ruptures generate significant trauma. The drive to create, or find, or fix a family is the source of much of the novel’s drama. And while it animates many of the characters’ storylines, it’s clearest in the lives of Lorena and Newt.
Lorena seems to yearn for a family—or, at least, a companion—to love and protect her. When Jake fails, she grows attached to Gus—but not too attached to stay on in Nebraska with Clara when Clara invites her into the Allen family. Similarly, although all of the Hat Creek men become surrogate father figures for Newt in the wake of his mother Maggie’s death, he instinctively craves the attention and praise of his real father, Woodrow Call, who can never bring himself to publicly recognize their relationship. Ultimately, Lonesome Dove is a tragic book: although the cattle drive reaches Montana, Gus dies and Call abandons the ranch—and, more importantly, Newt—to bring his friend’s body back to Texas. It’s sad that Newt never gets Call’s acknowledgement, but the novel clearly implies that Newt will be fine, because he’s always loved Call anyway. Instead, it’s those who actively deny their need for love and the claims of their families (specifically, Call and Bolivar) who end up back where they started, in the empty brushland of the Texas border. And worse, though they are physically in the same space, each is nevertheless more alone than ever. In turn, the novel explores the importance of family and community to soothe loneliness and, on the flipside, the strange fact that some people instinctively seem to run from this kind of support.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Compare and contrast themes from other texts to this theme…
Family ThemeTracker
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Family appears in each chapter of Lonesome Dove. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Family Quotes in Lonesome Dove
Below you will find the important quotes in Lonesome Dove related to the theme of Family.
Chapter 8
Quotes
The Captain was seldom really harsh with him unless he made a pure mess of some job, but the Captain never passed him a kind word, either. The Captain did not go around handing out kind words—but if he was in the mood to do so Newt knew he would be the last to get one. No compliment ever came to him from the Captain, no matter how well he worked. It was a little discouraging: the harder he tried to please the Captain, the less the Captain seemed to be pleased. When Newt managed to do some job right, the Captain seemed to feel that he had been put under an obligation, which puzzled Newt and made him wonder what was the point of working well if it was only going to irritate the Captain. And yet all the Captain seemed to care about was working well.
Related Characters:
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Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 59
Quotes
The thought that Gus was dead began to weigh on Call. It came to him several times a day, at moments, and made him feel empty and strange. They had not had much of a talk before Gus left. Nothing much had been said. He began to wish that somehow things could have been rounded off a little better. Of course he knew death was no respecter. People just dropped when they dropped, whether they had rounded things off or not. Still, it haunted him that Gus had just ridden off and might not ride back. He would look over the cattle herd strung out across the prairie and feel that it was all worthless, and a little absurd. Some days he almost felt like turning the cattle loose and paying off the crew. He could take Pea and Deets and maybe the boy and they would look for Gus until they found him.
Chapter 88
Quotes
Sitting in the kitchen with the girls and the baby, Lorena felt happy in a way that was new to her. It stirred in her distant memories of the days she had spent in her grandmother’s house in Mobile when she was four. […] It was her happiest memory, one she treasured so, that in her years of travelling she grew almost afraid to remember it […] She was very afraid of losing her one good, warm memory. […]
But in Clara’s house she wasn’t afraid to remember her grandmother and the softness of the bed. Clara’s house was the kind of house she thought she might live in some day—at least she had hoped to when she was little. But […] she had started living in hotels or little rooms. She slowly stopped thinking of nice houses and the things that went with them, such as little girls and babies.
Chapter 96
Quotes
“I hope you won’t mistreat Newt,” he said.
“Have I ever mistreated him?” Call asked.
“Yes, always […] You ought to do better by that boy. He’s the only son you’ll ever have—I’d bet my wad on that—though I guess it’s possible that you’ll take to women in your old age.”
“No, I won’t. […] They don’t like me. I never recall mistreating that boy.”
“Not naming him is mistreatment […] Give him your name, and you’ll have a son you can be proud of. And Newt will know you’re his pa.”
“I don’t know that myself.” […]
“I know it and you know it […] Women are goddamn right not to like you. You don’t want to admit you ever needed one of them, even for a moment’s pleasure. Though you’re human, and you did need one once—but you don’t want to need nothing you can’t get for yourself.”
Chapter 100
Quotes
Looking at the Captain, Newt began to feel sadder than he had ever felt in his life. Just to on, he wanted to say. Go on, if it’s that hard. He didn’t want the Captain to go on, of course. He felt too young; he didn’t want to be left with it all. He felt he couldn’t bear what was happening, it was so surprising. Five minutes before, he had been pulling a yearling out of a bog. Now the Captain had given him his horse and his gun, and stood with a look of suffering on his face. Even Sean O’Brien, dying of a dozen snakebites, had not shown such pain. Go on, then, Newt thought. Just let it be. It’s been this way always. Let it be, Captain.
Chapter 101
Quotes
“I’ll put it to you once more, in the plainest terms, Mr. Call,” Clara said. “A live son is more important than a dead friend. Can you understand that?”
“A promise is a promise,” Call said.
“A promise is words—a son is a life,” Clara said. “A life, Mr. Call. I was better fit to raise boys than you’ve ever been, and yet I lost three. I tell you no promise is worth leaving that boy up there, as you have. Does he know he’s your son?”
“I suppose he does—I gave him my horse,” Call said, feeling that it was hell to have her, of all women, talk to him about the matter.
“You horse but not your name?” Clara said. “You haven’t even given him your name?”
“I put more value on the horse,” Call said, turning the dun.
