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9. Duchess (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
Emmett plots out a route for San Francisco, intending to drop Woolly and Duchess off in Omaha along the way, and he and the others depart early the next morning. Though the fastest route bypasses the Lincoln Highway, Billy persuades Emmett to take that highway so Billy can see it. Woolly quickly becomes as interested in the highway as Billy, and Billy shares facts about the highway as Emmett drives. Despite the detour, the boys are making good time, until Duchess sees a sign bearing the name of a town he once lived in and asks Emmett to pay a visit. Emmett relents.
The fact that Woolly quickly becomes as invested in the Lincoln Highway as Billy speaks to their similar desires for adventure. Both Billy and Woolly see the Lincoln Highway as a site of possibility and opportunity for adventure, glossing over the darker fact that the Watson brothers’ mother abandoned them via the highway. This suggests that Billy and Woolly share a childish and romanticized perspective on adventure.
Themes
Duchess directs Emmett to his former orphanage, demands he stop the car, and runs inside. Emmett chases after Duchess, who locks the nuns in a room and distributes jam to the orphans. Emmett fails to find Duchess in the building, and when he emerges, Billy informs him that Duchess and Woolly have “borrowed” the Studebaker for a trip to New York. Emmett calls Sally, who agrees to take in Billy while Emmett takes a train to New York to find Duchess. Billy makes Emmett promise to control his anger and avoid violence.
Duchess’s willingness to steal his friend’s care once again how ruthlessly self-serving he is, but his gift to the orphans suggests that Duchess is not straightforwardly evil. He runs into the orphanage to trick Emmett into leaving the car, but he gives jam to the orphans with no ulterior motive. Meanwhile, Emmett continues to depend on Sally’s help despite his reluctance to admit it.
Themes
Later, Billy tells Sister Agnes, one of the nuns, that he and Emmett are on their way to see Billy and Emmett’s mother, and Emmett privately asks the nun not to encourage Billy’s hope that they will reunite with their mother. Sally picks up the boys and drives them to the train station, where Emmett tells Billy to go with Sally. Billy protests that since the Lincoln Highway starts in New York, he should go with Emmett there and take the highway back to California. Sally agrees that Billy should go, so Emmett relents. Sally makes Emmett promise to call her on his travels so she’ll know he is safe.
Billy holds an idealistic view of the boys’ mother and believes wholeheartedly that the brothers will reunite with her. This belief propels Billy’s desire for adventure since he is certain that the adventure will have a happy ending. Emmett is more cynical, and thus he intends to travel toward a specific destination rather than in pursuit of adventure. Emmett’s request that Sister Agnes not encourage Billy also highlights how Emmett has accepted that balancing Billy’s expectations is his own responsibility as Billy’s guardian.
Themes
In a flashback to that morning, Sister Agnes gives Billy a pendant of St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers. She explains to Emmett that Mr. Hewett abandoned Duchess and asks him to have sympathy for his friend. Emmett protests that he already has to look after Billy, and Sister Agnes argues that a good Christian doesn’t discriminate among who they give charity to. Back in the present, Emmett watches Sally leave the train station and realizes he has no money.
Sister Agnes offers a perspective on forgiveness that is contrary to both Duchess’s and Emmett’s worldviews. Duchess believes that the people who have wronged him owe him a debt. Sister Agnes posits, on the other hand, that all people owe each other forgiveness and charity. She also argues that this principle is universal rather than transactional. Emmett has not forgiven himself for Jimmy Snyder’s death because he doesn’t think that he has truly atoned, but Sister Agnes asks Emmett to forgive Duchess without atonement.
Themes
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