Lonesome Dove Themes & Symbolism

Lonesome Dove Significant Topics

Unrequited love is a powerful theme in the novel; we see Gus still in love with Clara Allen, who threw him over for Bob Allen twenty years earlier, though she loved Gus at the time. When Gus finally finds Clara—her husband in a coma from an accident—he renews his love for her; this love is so strong that on his deathbed he asks Call to bury him in a place where he and Clara used to picnic. Lorena Wood, a prostitute who is captured and savaged by a group of renegades, is rescued by Gus, and falls in love with him; ironically, it is Clara with whom she stays to complete her recuperation. Newt admires Call out of all reason, as Call refuses to acknowledge that he is Newt's father; Newt's disappointment at Calls departure is one of the keenest blows in his young life.

Newt's disappointment kindles...
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