Most novelists don't kill off half the characters in their books to prove a point, but this one does. The tragic and bloody deaths in the novel only reinforce the fact that the West was savage and could not be conquered by any human being, no matter how much experience or knowledge that person had. Larry McMurtry wrote the western Lonesome Dove to show (contrary to some romantic myths) how harsh and bloody the Wild West was. The bravest and most moral person could die as tragically as the ignorant coward. This novel shows how people behave in different situations depending on their personality traits. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Lonesome Dove's best-developed characters display distinct personalities. Jake Spoon, Augustus "Gus" McCrae, and Woodrow Call were Texas Rangers, fighting together for the common good of making the West safer to populate. They separated over time, but the novel begins when they reunite later in their lives. At Jake's suggestion, the three gather some friends and decide to embark on a three-thousand-mile journey from Lonesome Dove, Texas to the highlands of Montana. Jake convinces his friends to go on the journey by telling them of the paradise found in the rich and unstable frontier. The description of the scenery may be accurate, but the death and suffering that occurs throughout the journey is anything but a cowboy's paradise. How characters deal with deaths is shaped by their personalities. After young Sean O'Brien, the first victim on the Montana trip, is killed by snakes, Gus utters at the grave, "Dust to dust [. . .] Let the rest of us go to Montana" (McMurtry 307 ). For him, "death is a legitimate, tolerable and rational part of the Western landscape" (Shadroui). It's something Gus can recover from quickly, but a character like Call can brood about it for days, with the thought of death plaguing his brain. Although they have different ways of dealing with stress, former Rangers share a common characteristic: restlessness. They all have a reluctance to settle down and create a solid home. Threes feel the need to maintain interest and meaning in life. One of the main characters in Lonesome Dove is Woodrow Call. Call has a more dominant nature than any other main character. He is “practical but detached” (Bakker 221). Call is a leader, but cannot express or discuss deep feelings with other men. His way of dealing with an emotional situation is to spend the night alone, away from the fire. “Call fears his emotions, wishes to forget that he fathered a child through the young prostitute Maggie, and refuses to acknowledge his connections to other humans” (Etulain 144). The secret to Call's leadership ability is that he never hesitates. "He understands that most men doubt their own abilities, so they follow those who have no doubts. He also has no sympathy for this doubt, or for any other human weakness" (Bakker 225). Call can't even imagine what it means to be afraid, "an inability that Gus attributes to the one thing Call seems to lack: imagination" (Bakker 225). Administer the law and rules, uphold the Code of the West, and, if necessary, execute those who threaten the security and peace of the frontier. Yet he claims he is not a man of the law. "Anyway, I'm not going there to be a lawyer. I'm going there to raise cattle. Jake said it was cattle heaven" (McMurtry 84). While Call may not know it, he is leading the wayall the other people who come north. He thinks he is just driving a herd of cattle, but in reality he is opening the frontier to new inhabitants. “Call has a traditional view toward the wild West: extension of the white man's mission to conquer and farm” (Bakker 236). Call does not see the great injustice done to the Indians as Gus does. However, "the call is right even for the Indians".when one kills his friend Deets. He killed the Indian who killed Deets, but "does not take revenge on the hungry and confused Indian tribe. Realizing that they stole the horses to ward off impending starvation, he leaves them four animals" (Bakker 237). He only kills violent Indians to protect others. Call's domineering nature ensures peace on the frontier, but causes death. He will kill as many people as necessary to protect other people: the pioneers who he believes have more rights to the area than the Indians. Call seems to think that the ends justify the means. A second major character in Lonesome Dove is Augustus McCrae. He is the romantic, the comedian, the humane and easygoing cowboy. When the novel contains humor, it usually comes from Gus, who loves to hear himself talk. “McMurtry made him a man who is generous, cheerful, funny, and, though not without vanity, totally free from any form of meanness” (Bakker 223). In contrast to Call's stoicism and fear of women, Gus' gift for accommodation and ability to connect with others in positive ways make him a paradigm of the power of demonstrative love. Nowhere is this more evident than in how he rescues Lorena and nurses her back to emotional and physical health following her capture by Blue Duck (Jones 42). The reason, he says, for taking the trip is "to help establish some more banks" and to open the West to "Sunday school teachers and bankers" (McMurtry 83). The perpetually talkative egoist really goes to the cattle drive to fight his greatest enemy: boredom. He knew that the initiative was madness: this attracted him. Gus would have to cross dangerous rivers, survive stampedes, blizzards and deserts, and fight outlaws. Gus admits that he enjoys a traveling lifestyle: "I can't think of anything better than riding a nice horse in a new country. It's exactly what I was destined for" (McMurtry 744). When he finally reaches Montana, he says he wouldn't miss anything. After enforcing the Code of the West and making the West more hospitable to white settlers and businessmen, he realizes that the West will become boring again. By killing all the bandits and Indians, conquering the romantic myth of the West, he and his friends took away "what made this country interesting to begin with" (McMurtry 349). The more fights they win, the more boring their life will become once the excitement of such battles wears off. Gus believes (contrary to Call's belief of dominance) that the West is one of the last pristine, unpolluted regions on earth, ruined by the arrival of whites. Gus also contradicts his partner's opinion as he thinks the land belongs to the Indians and that accommodations should be made for the natives. “Augustus is acutely aware of the great injustice done to the Indians by the whites” (Bakker 236). When Call asks the dying Gus what should be done with the Indians who gave him his fatal wound, Gus replies, “They didn't invite us – don't be vindictive” (McMurtry 785). Gus sympathizes with the plight of others: whether it's the helplessness of women or newcomers to the country or area, like Lorena, or the Irish immigrants who hang out with Gus. Feel compassion for the Indians who are driven from their landChristmas and for settlers who are easily targeted by bandits. Gus's peaceful concessions to different groups and their ways of life maintain the peace in a less bloody way than Call's oxymoron "kill for peace" method. Jake Spoon is another main character in McMurtry's novel. Jake is a charming womanizer; life almost always goes right. “All Jake asked for in life was a clean saloon to gamble in, a nice whore to sleep with, and whiskey to drink” (Bakker 222). Although Jake seems like a young and intrepid hero, he was actually the morally weakest of the three. “Jake's strength is imitative” (Bakker 222). Around Gus and Call, he became as good a Ranger as either of them had been. But Jake dies as a horse thief and murderer because he was too indulgent, lazy, and weak to stick to the moral behavior he knows he should have maintained. The biggest problems arise when Jake begins to stray from the herd, when he decides not to join his Ranger friends at the campsite. "Jake, the original idea of ​​the trip, refuses to work with the herd as they head north, but in an effort to continue to enjoy the protection of his old Ranger comrades, he remotely follows Lorraine, whom he had promised to bring to San Francisco but for whom he has no real affection" (Jones 144). Jake's negligence in his cattle driving duties and his failure to protect Lorena mark the beginning of his downfall. Jake begins gambling and drinking more heavily than before. Without the other Rangers around to keep him on the straight and narrow, he drifts away from the moral standards he once followed. While Jake celebrates in the city, Lorena is kidnapped and Gus must save her from a dangerous situation that will leave her scarred for life. Jake's indifferent and weak nature contrasts drastically with Gus' staunch loyalty, patience, and strength. Gus is the one who nurses Lorena back to health after risking his life to save her. Jake lacks the will to break free from the sinful nature of those he has chosen to follow. This makes Jake complicit in a series of senseless thefts and murders that he neither approved of nor wanted to participate in. “Ironically, Jake's death stems from the Ranger code of justice, which the three Rangers together fought to uphold” Jones 41). “McMurtry humanizes his characters – not the exaggerated heroes of romance or myth, but neither reduces them to a level that seems ordinary” (Reilly 99). The characters suffer and die as any human being would. They make mistakes, even fatal ones, that lead to their death or that of their friends. Even Call, the ideal cowboy, displays deadly flaws: giving in to lust, getting lost or reacting too slowly during an attack on his men. McMurtry shows how experienced men can fall prey to situations beyond their control. "Even an experienced man, riding into such a chaos of snakes, would not have survived. It only proved what he already knew, that there are more dangers in life than even the keenest training could foresee" (McMurtry 306). McMurtry contrasts Call's morality with Jake's weakness, who can't even disapprove or try to stop the most blatant of sins. None of the three Rangers can be placed on a pedestal of heroism and valor; each shows his mortal nature in sins, mistakes and even death. Men, like every other human being, try to get as much satisfaction from life as possible. "The American West was for them a place where man could live without constantly submitting to systems. The West represented man's tireless effort to fill the void of existence with meaning, a meaning that became problematic again when in which the