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5. Woolly
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
Having attacked Ackerly and the cowboy back in Nebraska, Duchess feels his debts are almost settled. He believes he owes a debt to Townhouse, the Black inmate at Salina who was beaten by the racist Ackerly for Duchess’s misbehavior. The issue is complicated, though, by an incident at Salina when a racist inmate stole from the pantry and blamed Townhouse before Duchess intervened and pinned the blame on that racist inmate, which prompted Townhouse to remark that he owed Duchess. Duchess isn’t sure to what extent this good deed offsets his debt to Townhouse.
Duchess’s attempt to calculate his debt to Townhouse highlights the absurdity of his transactional moral code. He attributes positive and negative moral value to certain actions, but only in the context of how those actions relate to the debts Duchess owes or is owed. To perpetuate this way of thinking, Duchess has to concretely quantify the abstract notion of morality, which even he, in his self-delusion, finds difficult.
Themes
Duchess recalls Townhouse’s address in New York and drives to see him. He approaches Townhouse, in a confrontation made awkward by the presence of Townhouse’s friends, and offers to let Townhouse hit him three times to settle their debt. Townhouse is reluctant, but since his friends are watching, he hits Duchess. After the first punch, Duchess can tell that Townhouse is reliving the incident at Salina and feeling the “fire of justice.” When Townhouse is finished, Duchess starts to walk away. He recalls feeling satisfied after giving jam to the children at his orphanage, so he gives the keys to Emmett’s car to one of Townhouse’s friends before heading off to find Mr. Hewett.
Duchess’s decision to give away the jam and the car keys allows him to experience, seemingly for the first time, the satisfaction of selfless deeds. His unfamiliarity with this feeling speaks to the profound immaturity that shapes his fixation on settling debts. Duchess insists he is paying Townhouse back, but his request to Townhouse serves Duchess more than Townhouse. Duchess forces Townhouse to relive the trauma of Salina, while Duchess himself gets to ease his guilt and feel that he has paid his debt.
Themes
