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9. 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 into the town of Morgen and sees Emmett’s confrontation with Jake Snyder, which is being watched by a crowd of townspeople. Though Jake wins the fight, Duchess sees Emmett’s willingness to take a beating as proof of his strength. After the sheriff breaks up the fight, Duchess follows the friend of Jake’s whom Emmett didn’t recognize, a man Duchess dubs “the cowboy.” Duchess recalls his time with the nuns at the orphanage, who taught him a lesson that Warden Williams reiterated at Salina: his misdeeds put him in other people’s debt, and their misdeeds put them in his. While Emmett might owe a debt to Jake, Duchess doesn’t believe he owes anything to the cowboy.
Duchess shares Billy’s tendency to view the world in clear, unambiguous terms: he sees life as a story with obvious protagonists and antagonists. The similarities between the two characters’ perspectives contrasts with the stark differences between how Duchess and Billy conceive of stories. The heroes of Billy’s stories are guided by ingenuity and morality, while Duchess prioritizes a transactional settling of debts. The similarities between Billy and Duchess’s way of interpreting the world also hints that Duchess is not as mature as he likes to believe.
Themes
Duchess approaches the cowboy and tells him off for getting involved in Emmett’s affairs. The cowboy dismisses him rudely and walks away. Duchess follows, annoyed that the cowboy is ignoring Duchess’s attempts to save him from the burden of misdeeds. Duchess chases after the cowboy and strikes him on the side of the head, knocking the cowboy to the ground. Duchess leaves the cowboy unconscious in an alley and walks away with “moral satisfaction.” The first car that passes him on the road gives him a ride back to the Watsons’ farm.
Duchess’s moral code is simple and transactional, which allows him to position himself as morally correct for attacking a stranger. Just like Duchess manipulates others by exaggerating or bending the truth, he deludes himself with a story about his own morality.
Themes
