Previous
2. 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
Duchess goes to the general store, leaving Woolly to reminisce about his childhood memories in his great-grandfather’s house. He looks at a picture of his family and reflects that looking at old photographs only makes him think of what is about to happen to that younger version of himself. He goes to the room that was unofficially his for much of his childhood and starts to unpack. He produces a bottle of pills he found in Sarah’s kitchen. He hears Duchess return with the car, and he wishes that people fit together like puzzle pieces, so “no one person’s life would ever be an inconvenience to anyone else’s.” He swallows all the pills in the bottle and imagines the blissful times ahead.
Woolly’s decision to take his own life is driven by personal regrets and a misguided belief that his death would help his loved ones. Though he often seems unaware of his surroundings, the sadness Woolly feels for his younger self indicates that he understands and regrets the decisions he has made and the ones that were made for him. He also recognizes that he has been other people’s responsibility for his entire life, which makes Woolly feel like an “inconvenience.” He loves his friends, and he loves Sarah, so he wants to take responsibility for himself and unburden them of that inconvenience.
Themes
