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1. Emmett (2)
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Lincoln Highway, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Stories, Truth, and Lies
Debts and Atonement
Maturity and Responsibility
Adventure
Pride vs. Humility
Summary
Analysis
The story flashes back to the previous day. After Woolly reveals that he can’t open the safe, Duchess spends hours trying to break it open. He searches the office for a paper that might contain the combination, but finds nothing. He looks for Woolly to ask which room was his great-grandfather’s, hoping to find a clue there, but he finds Woolly already dead. Duchess compares Woolly’s expression to the once Marceline the clown wore after killing himself––one of “neither happiness nor sorrow,” but “some semblance of peace.”
Duchess is a deeply selfish character, but he is also lonely. Marceline, one of the only friends he had in adolescence, took his own life. Now Woolly, one of Duchess’s only friends in young adulthood, has done the same. Duchess regards Woolly’s dead body with uncharacteristic compassion as he registers his friend’s final emotional state, which suggests that Duchess did care about Woolly to some extent.
Themes
Duchess makes himself dinner and goes to sleep. In the morning, he continues trying to break open the safe. Emmett arrives, and Duchess is happy to see him, since Emmett is skilled with tools and can likely open the safe. When Emmett starts talking about the police, Duchess rationalizes this as Emmett “acting a little crazy” in response to his grief over Woolly. He sees Billy’s arrival as an act of fate that he can take advantage of, and he does so by striking Emmett with a rock and bringing Billy inside. He tells Billy that Emmett has given up on the plan, and that Billy needs to help Duchess if he still wants to build a house for Billy, Emmett, and Billy and Emmett’s mother. Billy kicks Duchess and runs away. Duchess hears a window break and, afraid Emmett is coming into the house, throws a croquet ball at the sound.
Duchess is desperate to open the safe, which will allow him to feel that his plan is a success, and in his desperation he starts to lose himself in his own lies. He doesn’t process that Emmett might not want to help him, and he tries to justify Emmett’s hostility as a result of grief. When Billy arrives, Duchess adapts to the new circumstance by completely reconfiguring his understanding of the situation, attacking Emmett and taking Billy hostage. Even then, he tries to manipulate Billy by playing on the boy’s desire to reunite his family.
Themes
