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6. Sally
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
When Ulysses tells his friend at the railroad camp that he and the Watson boys will be spending another night, Ulysses’s friend is surprised, noting that Ulysses has not spent two nights in the same place in eight years. Ulysses brushes him off and looks at the Manhattan skyline. He has no love for New York, but he wants to spend more time with Billy, whom he has grown to care for.
Billy’s love for stories lets him see the world with wonder, and that youthful innocence and optimism is softening Ulysses’s jaded persona. He has given Ulysses someone to care for, after Ulysses has spent years with no obligation to anyone but himself. This feeling of responsibility borne of love and care gives Ulysses a sense of purpose.
Themes
