<p>Hey everyone... I was just curious if anyone here has read Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty. I have to write a paper analyzing one of the characters in the novel and how the setting has influenced that character. Anyone have any ideas? I think I will write it about Gus or Call or Newt.... I find the "how the SETTING has influenced the character" part difficult. It would be far easier simply to analyze a character. It is especially interesting since Call and Gus have lived together a lot and are so different... so the same setting has influenced them in different ways. I might also do Lorena... I just worry the paper will be too bland--abuse, male v female relationships etc. but it could also be an interesting paper.</p>
<p>If you have read the book, who would YOU choose to write about. Feel free just to list a name or to elaborate on why and what you would say. It's a wonderful book. </p>
<p>Oh, I've only read THE FIRST 300 PAGESS!!!! So please don't spoil anything. I am only writing this paper based on part one... pretty much up until the point when they head north.</p>
<p>Yes, I’ve read Lonesome Dove several times. It’s one of my favorite books. I even named my dog Augustus McCrae" in its pedigree. I think the character that would be easiest to Analyze would be Woodrow Call. He was brought to America from Scotland when he was “still hanging on the tit”- Augustus’ words not mine. So you could comment on how he would have been different if he hadn’t faced the hardships in the American West. Oh, and now that I think of it, Gus grew up rich back east, and CHOSE to go to West because he needed adventure.</p>
<p>Oh, another reason Call would be the easiest to talk about is that Gus describes him pretty accurately in several occasions in the book itself. Right when he himself is about to die, Gus makes Call promise he will bury him in “Clara’s Orchard” on the Guadalupe River, a thousand miles away, just so Call will keep having a purpose in life. So Call might have not been quite as obsessive in a country that did not have so many hardships and dangers to obsess about, etc.</p>
<p>Lorena totally surprises you in the next book in the series. She turns out to be quite tough and determined, even to the point of saving Woodrow’s life.</p>
<p>setting usually means environment. the natural environment shapes how one has to live i.e, the west texas is pretty dry, the heat is outstanding and the type of work that is done in this environment etc. shapes one’s life. Living in VT, you ahv to hunker down with the cold and learn to live in darkness and cold and all the physical, mental and emotional issues that creates in a long, long winter and a short, short summer.
Same with the environment that Gus and Cal lived in. The time in history that the story was written is also the setting. if you want clarification and examples, read about how to write a story…writer’s have to have a setting a place that the characters live and why and how they spend their day to day lives. Ethan Frome…setting was cold, barren Northeast and the home was a home with an invalid…that is the setting from whence the characters are shaped.</p>