Lorinda Pike Character Analysis in It Can’t Happen Here

Lorinda Pike is a spirited young widow who runs the Beulah Valley Tavern near town. While she has a poor reputation in town because of her marital status, she is one of Doremus Jessup and Buck Titus’s best friends. In fact, she’s Jessup’s primary love interest during the entire novel—they carry on a long affair, and they have much more in common than Jessup does with his wife Emma. A staunch liberal and opponent of the Windrip administration, Pike becomes one of the New Underground’s main leaders in Fort Beulah, especially after her business partner, Mr. Nipper, convinces Judge Effingham Swan to sign over total control of the Tavern to him. She moves in with Buck Titus instead, posing as his housekeeper but really spending all of her time leading refugees to Canada and helping Doremus Jessup publish his anti-government pamphlets. However, when she realizes that her affair with Jessup is interfering with her commitment to fighting fascism, she leaves Fort Beulah and moves north to Beecher Falls, where she starts another chapter of the New Underground. She and Sissy eventually help Doremus Jessup escape from the Trianon concentration camp and make it to Canada. Practical, industrious, and firmly committed to saving democracy from tyranny, Lorinda Pike is a model activist.

Lorinda Pike Quotes in It Can’t Happen Here

The It Can’t Happen Here quotes below are all either spoken by Lorinda Pike or refer to Lorinda Pike. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

“Well, all the birdies in their nest agree. My friend, Mrs. Pike, ought to know that freedom of speech becomes mere license when it goes so far as to criticize the Army, differ with the D.A.R., and advocate the rights of the Mob. So, Lorinda, I think you ought to apologize to the General, to whom we should be grateful for explaining to us what the ruling classes of the country really want. Come on now, my friend—jump up and make your excuses.”

Related Characters: Doremus Jessup/William Barton Dobbs (speaker), Herbert Y. Edgeways, Adelaide Tarr Gimmitch , Lorinda Pike

Page Number and Citation: 9-10

Explanation and Analysis:

“All this trouble and the Corpos—They’re going to do something to you and me. We’ll become so roused up that—either we’ll be desperate and really cling to each other and everybody else in the world can go to the devil or, what I’m afraid is more likely, we’ll get so deep into rebellion against Windrip, we’ll feel so terribly that we’re standing for something, that we’ll want to give up everything else for it, even give up you and me. So that no one can ever find out and criticize. We’ll have to be beyond criticism.”

“No! I won’t listen. We will fight, but how can we ever get so involved—detached people like us—”

“You are going to publish that editorial tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

Related Characters: Doremus Jessup/William Barton Dobbs (speaker), Lorinda Pike (speaker), Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, Dr. Hector Macgoblin, Willy Schmidt, Rabbi Vincent de Verez

Related Symbols: The Fort Beulah Daily Informer

Page Number and Citation: 179-180

Explanation and Analysis:

Doremus discovered that neither he nor any other small citizen had been hearing one hundredth of what was going on in America. Windrip & Co. had, like Hitler and Mussolini, discovered that a modern state can, by the triple process of controlling every item in the press, breaking up at the start any association which might become dangerous, and keeping all the machine guns, artillery, armored automobiles, and aeroplanes in the hands of the government, dominate the complex contemporary population better than had ever been done in medieval days, when rebellious peasantry were armed only with pitchforks and good-will, but the State was not armed much better.
Dreadful, incredible information came in to Doremus, until he saw that his own life, and Sissy’s and Lorinda’s and Buck’s, were unimportant accidents.

Related Characters: Doremus Jessup/William Barton Dobbs, Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, Cecilia “Sissy” Jessup, Lorinda Pike, Buck Titus

Page Number and Citation: 260

Explanation and Analysis:

Lorinda Pike Character Timeline in It Can’t Happen Here

The timeline below shows where the character Lorinda Pike appears in It Can’t Happen Here. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...Gimmitch announces, women should stay home and have six children each. The cranky young widow Lorinda Pike calls out to ask what women should do if they “can’t hook a man,”... (full context)

Political Communication and Mass Media Theme Icon

Lorinda Pike stands up to complain about the General’s “sadistic nonsense,” but the wealthy local quarry... (full context)

...The whole crowd sings along. Doremus Jessup’s wife, Emma, sarcastically praises him for shutting up Lorinda Pike. The Jessups agree not to invite “the Siamese elephant, the Gimmitch,” over to their... (full context)

...is also visiting town for a picnic. The whole family will be there, as will Lorinda Pike and Jessup’s closest friend, the rugged but intellectual Montana cowboy Buck Titus, who moved... (full context)

...Emma asks him to be careful and worries about his carelessness. But Father Perefixe, Sissy, Lorinda Pike, and the housekeeper Mrs. Candy are furious about Windrip’s platform, too. (full context)

Shad Ledue’s outlaw friend Alfred “Snake” Tizra, the unkempt dairy farmer Aras Dilley, Lorinda Pike’s business partner Mr. Nipper, and Emil Staubmeyer all giddily tell Doremus Jessup that Windrip... (full context)

Lorinda Pike—who doesn’t go to church—spends that Sunday afternoon cleaning up her boarding house, the Beulah... (full context)

Jessup approaches the window, then notices someone watching him and Lorinda Pike from across the street. It’s Shad Ledue, who’s supposed to be working. Jessup says... (full context)

...way home, Sissy criticizes Doremus’s overly cautious driving, then comments on his frequent visits to Lorinda Pike and suggests that they’re having an affair. Doremus denounces the suggestion, but Sissy says... (full context)

...fascists—but Jessup doesn’t know whether this is a good or bad sign. After the inauguration, Lorinda Pike also starts visiting Titus’s house—she often argues passionately with him about literature. (full context)

...campus in Hanover. Before Doremus Jessup leaves to attend, Sissy, Julian Falck, Buck Titus, and Lorinda Pike write him a rhyming poem about how dreadful Haik and Reek are. On his... (full context)

...write the truth, but pretends to be returning to the office. He heads to visit Lorinda Pike at the Tavern instead. (full context)

The Beulah Valley Tavern is busy with tourists from New York, so Lorinda Pike isn’t available until after 10 p.m. Doremus Jessup asks her to read his editorial—he... (full context)

Lorinda Pike predicts that either she and Jessup will grow paranoid and isolated, or they will... (full context)

...building, and his Minute Men take Doremus Jessup to jail. Jessup worries about Emma and Lorinda. He realizes that one of the Minute Men is Aras Dilley, but Dilley pretends not... (full context)

...it may be too late. Jessup worries that he’ll have to choose between Emma and Lorinda, and he wonders how Lorinda’s case went in court. Just after midnight, Aras Dilley wakes... (full context)

Lorinda Pike and Mr. Nipper leave the courtroom, and Aras Dilley joyously tells Jessup that the... (full context)

...catchphrases are from popular detective stories, and Swan asks if Jessup is mocking him—just like Lorinda Pike did. Shad Ledue says that everyone knows about Pike and Jessup’s relationship. Jessup angrily... (full context)

...wrong things: she thinks that Doremus going to jail reflects poorly on the family. (But Lorinda Pike was proud of him.) (full context)

Jessup’s only solace is meeting with Lorinda Pike, who has started organizing young women through cooking classes and preparing them for the... (full context)

Doremus, Sissy, and Julian Falck rush off to ask Lorinda Pike about their new business idea. At the Tavern, Pike offers them doughnuts and takes... (full context)

...One day, Buck Titus calls him and asks to meet with his whole family, plus Lorinda Pike and Julian Falck. (full context)

...think about how the women in his family will feel if he gets killed, and Lorinda Pike insists that they can all do more to help the U.S. from Canada. Sissy... (full context)

...the family brings trifles like lingerie, photo albums, and toys. He anxiously says goodbye to Lorinda Pike in the bathroom and admits that he’s planning to return. Buck Titus packs Doremus,... (full context)

...them to the courthouse to be tortured, then sends them to the Trianon concentration camp. Lorinda Pike helps Mrs. Loveland and her children get back on their feet. Meanwhile, the county... (full context)

...at home, which bothers Emma. (She even encourages him to go visit Buck Titus and Lorinda Pike.) Once, Jessup visits the Informer offices, and he sees that Doc Itchitt has effectively... (full context)

...basement, and it has about two dozen members, including Doremus Jessup, Buck Titus, Dan Wilgus, Lorinda Pike, Julian Falck, Dr. Marcus Olmsted, John Pollikop, Father Perefixe, Henry Veeder’s wife, Harry Kindermann,... (full context)

The Fort Beulah New Underground publishes pamphlets by Jessup (“Spartan”) and Pike (“Anthony B. Susan”), in addition to Vermont Vigilance, which compiles banned news from other New... (full context)

...Titus boldly distribute crumpled-up pamphlets around Burlington, and she hides leaflets inside drugstore magazines. Meanwhile, Lorinda Pike quits working at the Tavern and becomes Buck Titus’s live-in housekeeper instead, so that... (full context)

One morning, Doremus Jessup lays next to Lorinda Pike in bed and fantasizes about the fabulous life of adventure and revolution they will... (full context)

...Berlin—in contrast, Fort Beulah’s tiny New Underground cell is drab and boring (especially now that Lorinda Pike is gone). Jessup feels like his shabby pamphlets can never defeat the well-organized Corpo... (full context)

...Emma Jessup doesn’t understand why Doremus bothers to criticize the authorities, but she’s glad that Lorinda Pike left town (since Pike’s “wild crazy ideas” are a bad influence on Doremus). Still,... (full context)

...updates Jessup on his family and friends: Emma, Mary, and Sissy are safe at home, Lorinda Pike is still free, and Buck Titus is at a different camp. Julian Falck, now... (full context)

...him. She does, and she brings David with her. Sissy decides to go work for Lorinda Pike instead, and in the meantime, she stays in Fort Beulah to rent out the... (full context)

Sissy Jessup and Lorinda Pike run a mostly empty tea room in Beecher Falls. They discuss Mary’s death: Lorinda... (full context)

...nothing more than to escape. One day, to his surprise, Aras Dilley tells him that Lorinda Pike is plotting to get him out. Dilley makes a hole in the fence and... (full context)

Doremus Jessup is dirty, gaunt, and weak, but alive. Sissy and Lorinda Pike give him a warm bath, fresh clothes, and hot food. He feels like he’s... (full context)

...lobby until it’s time to leave for his train. A seductive looking woman walks by—it’s Lorinda Pike. She embraces Jessup and gives him some final news before his departure. Buck Titus,... (full context)

Lorinda Pike says goodbye, and Doremus Jessup boards his train. He realizes that nobody will be... (full context)

...and the Rev. Mr. Falck, Henry Veeder, John Pollikop, Truman Webb, and even Karl Pascal. Lorinda Pike, Emma, Sissy, Mary, David, Foolish, and Mrs. Candy wait in the distance. Shad Ledue... (full context)