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Chapter 98
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
Just after New Year’s, July proposes to Clara. She doesn’t answer, although she makes it clear that she’s heard him. This confuses July, who has tried to show his devotion by doing everything she asks him to. Then, Martin gets sick, sending Clara into an agony of terror lest another baby boy die on her watch. July stays out of the sickroom because he doesn’t know what he can—or should do. He stays away even after Clara tearfully confesses her fear and sadness over the situation to him one night. In the morning, she’s angry over his helplessness. She can’t imagine how he was a sheriff, a job that requires giving orders. July says he occasionally told Roscoe to sweep out the jail. Clara won’t answer his proposal for at least a year, giving him time to show her that he can take ownership of his life and actions.
In Montana, Call can’t stop himself from pressing forward even when he knows it’s foolish or pointless. In contrast, in Nebraska, July can’t make himself act even when it’s for something he desperately wants. He’s still waiting for someone else to make the decisions for him—just as he allowed Ellie to seduce him into an ill-advised marriage. His helplessness contrasts sharply with Clara’s strength and resolve—even though she wants and needs comfort herself, she manages to do without when it’s not forthcoming. And this reminds readers yet again of how important it is to live proactively rather than passively. Clara gives July more time to prove himself, nothing in the book suggests that he’ll make good use of it.
Themes
Then Dish shows up, and this complicates things even more for July, because although it’s clear that Dish is in love with Lorena, it’s also clear that Lorena doesn’t care. Dish is a more competent hand with the horses than July, and he immediately befriends Sally and Betsey with his fun-loving demeanor. July concludes that it’s only a matter of time before Clara realizes that Dish is the better match for her and forgets him. Clara can see July is jealous, and it strikes her as funny, because it’s so clear to that Dish only loves Lorena.
Dish doesn’t want Clara—he still loves Lorena—but it’s clear to everyone that he’s a better match for her. Painfully, although he can see what she wants and needs, he cannot give it to her. His story reinforces the human need for love and belonging (for family, in a word), but it also shows how hard it can be to live a good life in a difficult world—and if a person lacks the willpower to control his or her own life. And this episode reinforces the idea that women don’t necessarily need men to take care of themselves. Clara and Lorena are both happier alone than with the wrong partner by their sides.
Themes
Clara occasionally feels sad about Gus’s death, but her sadness is tempered by the knowledge that things could never have worked out between them romantically. She loved him, but they were both too strong-willed to have made a functional couple. That’s why she never married him. Lorena takes the news so hard, however, that Clara half expects her to take her own life. Clara does what she can to cheer the younger woman up, but in the end, she knows it’s like Martin’s sickness: she will do everything in her power, but ultimately, she cannot control the outcome. Those who love Lorena—Clara, Dish, and Betsey—must wait to see if she will decide to live or to die.
Clara’s reflections on Gus’s death confirm the dynamics that readers got to see for themselves earlier, during Gus’s visit. Temperamentally, Clara and Gus mirror each other (suggesting that the good life Gus represents isn’t just a thing for men to have). And they’re each happier in a way when they have a counterpoint. For Gus, it was Call’s determination and drive. For Clara, it’s July’s haplessness that allows her to stay sharp. Lorena, by contrast, becomes quite a tragic figure now near the end of the book. She got what she really needed—a family—with the Allens. But now readers can see that she truly came to love Gus for who he was and what he meant to her—not just for the idea of protection he offered her in the wake of her abduction. Her grief testifies to the power of love. And the worry of the others speaks to the painful truth that in the end, no one can control another person’s actions, thoughts, or emotions. Lorena’s future is up to Lorena—and fate—to decide.
Themes
