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10. Emmett
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
While the chapter in Emmett’s perspective was in 3rd person, this chapter switches to 1st person as Duchess gleefully compares Emmett’s surprise at seeing him and Woolly to a crowd witnessing a stage magician’s trick. Duchess explains to Emmett that he and Woolly escaped Salina by hiding in Warden Williams’s trunk when he left with Emmett. Duchess greets Billy, then sees the Studebaker and recognizes it as the one Emmett kept a picture of at Salina. Emmett tells Billy to go inside with Woolly and heat up Sally’s casserole while Emmett talks to Duchess.
The appearance of Duchess and Woolly stops Emmett just as he is about to head out for a new life. Their presence also hinders Emmett’s fresh start symbolically since he can’t move on from Salina with two of his fellow inmates with him. The switch to the first-person perspective for Duchess’s narration demonstrates his responsive and often self-centered view of the world. His comparison between Emmett’s surprise and a magic show also reveals that Duchess sees the world in terms of performances and audience reactions.
Themes
Once they are alone, Emmett asks Duchess what he and Woolly are doing in Nebraska. Duchess explains that he has no intention of returning to Salina, even though he and Woolly only have a few months left on their sentences. Emmett argues that since Duchess and Woolly both recently turned 18, they will be sent to a real prison if they are caught. Duchess insists that the escape was Woolly’s idea, “embellishing” the story with a lie about Woolly stealing a knife to emphasize Woolly’s mental instability. Woolly comes from a privileged background but struggles with mental and emotional issues, so Emmett hesitates to turn him and Duchess away. Duchess takes advantage of this hesitation and goes into the house to eat.
Duchess views the truth as malleable. He warps the events of his and Woolly’s escape to appeal to his specific audience––Emmett. He has no qualms about lying to his friend about the mental stability of another friend; Woolly becomes just a character in Duchess’s version of events, and Emmett is merely his audience. Duchess also disregards elements of the truth that don't suit him, ignoring Emmett's warning about the boys being sent to a real prison in favor of presenting his own narrative.
Themes
Duchess, who comes from the East Coast, enjoys Sally’s “country cooking” and the Watsons’ quaint lifestyle. As they dine on the casserole, Woolly asks Duchess about “the escapade,” and Duchess tells Emmett that Woolly’s family has deemed him “temperamentally unfit” to inherit his own trust fund. Woolly’s family has a cache of $150,000 in their summer home in upstate New York, and Duchess has persuaded Woolly to split the money three ways if Duchess and Emmett help him steal it. However, they have little time to enact the heist, since the family camp opens in the last weekend in June.
Duchess seems to have brought Woolly out of Salina with him for the sole purpose of getting access to Woolly’s trust fund. This further speaks to Duchess’s self-serving nature: he is willing to help his friends, but only if it will eventually benefit him. Woolly is fully committed to the heist, and his terming of it as “the escapade” hints that his willingness to participate comes mostly from a desire for adventure.
Themes
Duchess believes that philosophy about the human will overcomplicates people’s motivations. He believes that he can understand any man by asking him what he would do with $50,000, and when he asks this question to Emmett, Duchess can tell Emmett has a specific plan in mind. Finally, Emmett refuses the offer, and Duchess realizes he made a mistake explaining the situation in front of Billy, whom Emmett wants to shield from the world’s harsh realities.
Duchess holds a simplistic understanding of human motivations that reveals the limits of his worldview. He is not mature enough to realize that other people are not necessarily motivated by the same goals that drive him, so he universalizes his own experience and assumes that this makes him wise. However, Duchess is skilled at manipulating people, so he can recognize Emmett’s feeling of responsibility toward Billy once that feeling stands in the way of Duchess’s goal.
Themes
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After dinner, Emmett walks to the Ransoms’ house to ask them to jumpstart his car, leaving Duchess and Woolly with Billy. Duchess talks to Billy about The Three Musketeers, pointing out that the story is actually about 4 musketeers. Billy tells Duchess that if he had $50,000, he would build a house in San Francisco, where Billy and Emmett’s mother lives. Duchess is surprised to hear that the Watsons’ mother is alive, and he knows that $50,000 isn’t enough to accomplish Billy’s dreams, but he humors the boy. Woolly has been silent throughout the conversation, but he becomes interested in designing the house and sketches a floor plan for it.
Duchess ingratiates himself with Billy by framing himself, Woolly, Billy, and Emmett as the heroic musketeers. His awareness of how to appeal to Billy’s love of stories further shows Duchess’s skill at reading and manipulating people. He goes along with Billy’s fantasy of reuniting with his mother because that dream serves Duchess’s goal of stealing the trust fund.
Themes
Later, Duchess searches the house for alcohol. He finds a stack of unpaid bills, and he assumes that Charlie Watson refused to throw the bills away. Duchess’s own father (Harrison Hewett) frequently throws away bills and gives false addresses to avoid them, so Duchess grew up running with his father from bill collectors. Duchess joins Billy and Woolly in Billy’s bedroom, and Duchess explains to Billy that his nickname comes from his birthplace, Dutchess County, New York. Billy is excited that Duchess is from New York, since Professor Abacus Abernathe, the author of his favorite book, is from Manhattan. When Duchess says that his father’s work as an actor brought him all over the country, Billy tells Duchess about the Lincoln Highway.
Charlie Watson may not have been able to give his sons everything they needed, but he tried to provide for them honestly and set a moral example. Harrison Hewett modeled no such honor for Duchess, which hints at the reasons for his unscrupulous nature as a young man. Duchess’s conversation with Billy also emphasizes that Billy understands the world in terms of stories, as he sees New York as first and foremost the home of Professor Abernathe.
Themes
When Emmett returns home from the Ransoms’, he lets Duchess sleep in his room, which is sparse and undecorated. As he falls asleep, Duchess recalls a con Mr. Hewett would run when he went on tour, and the story flashes back to one instance of this. At the final stop on the tour, from which there will be no forwarding address, Mr. Hewett pretends to have made a reservation at the town’s most exclusive hotel. When the hotel has no record of this, he makes a grand display of being offended until the management gives him a room. Mr. Hewett orders food, flowers, and laundry through the hotel, and brings Duchess out for a picnic with a young woman. After the picnic, Mr. Hewett stops at a church and asks Duchess to wait while he runs an errand. He then drives off with the young woman, leaving Duchess behind.
Mr. Hewett’s abandonment of Duchess reveals how little love Duchess has experienced in his life. His self-serving nature likely results from a need to look out for himself at a young age, as well as from the poor moral example Mr. Hewett set for young Duchess. Though Duchess resents his father, he has learned from Mr. Hewett how to deceive and manipulate people for his personal gain. This is one of the few lessons Mr. Hewett taught his son, which is why Duchess is less mature and responsible than Emmett, whose father was flawed but ultimately provided a home where Emmett could develop healthily.
Themes
