tark contrast to Clara’s, as July is willing to risk stability to follow the man she really loves despite the costs. While most of the men are of few words, McMurtry’s women are more effusive because they love so passionately, but they remain pragmatists in the face of the realities of the Western frontier. This analysis will examine and explore the relationships between men and novel in Lonesome Dove, and how the female characters represent a brand of feminism, albeit one limited to a degree due to the time and place of the action.
There action revolves around two central male characters in Lonesome Dove, ex-Texas Rangers Captain Woodrow Call and Augustus (Gus) McCrae. The differences between these two characters help us frame our perspective of the women in the novel. Call is powerful, tireless, and a loner. He is humorless and often pushes himself and those around him too hard. Call is a utilitarian all the way. In stark contrast, Gus is a pure romantic. Gus is a reworking of the conventional Western hero. He likes to talk, he loves irony, he enjoys personal involvement, and he is passionate and loving enough to weep openly over the memory of a former love. In a genre often filled with misogynists, Gus loves women and actively solicits their companionship. Gus is as comfortable around women as he is with men, because he enjoys women for more than sexual gratification. He understands women are the civilizing force in society – especially ones like the Wild West. As McMurtry wrote on this topic in an interview in 1988:
The myth of the clean-living cowboy devoted to agrarian pursuits and the rural way of life is extremely limiting. I don’t think these myths do justice to the richness of human possibility. The idea that men are men and women are women and horses are best of all is not a myth that makes for the best sort of domestic life, the best sort of cultural life. It’s very exclusionary. It is a co...