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Maturity and Responsibility
Themes and Colors
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Lincoln Highway, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Lincoln Highway centers around a cross-country road trip that characters like Billy romanticize as an adventure. The journey bears similarities to the legends about great expeditions in Billy’s favorite book, and Billy plots a course along the Lincoln Highway not only to follow the path of Billy and Emmett’s mother, but also to explore as much of the country as possible. Other characters share Billy’s impulse for adventure: Townhouse wants to join the army to see the world, and at the end of the book Sally reveals her desire to face the “whole wide world” as an independent young woman. For both characters, the promise of adventure grants them hope that they can reshape their lives. Billy’ unwavering faith that his life will be an adventure also inspires Professor Abacus Abernathe to realize that his old age does not prevent him from continuing to explore the world and undertake new adventures. However, although the story offers a hopeful view of adventure, it also makes clear that adventure itself is not inherently positive.
Billy idolizes Ulysses (a traveler who rides the rails) as a great adventurer, just like his namesake. But Ulysses rides the rails because he has no home and no family to return to, and his ceaseless travel is a coping mechanism to prevent Ulysses from forming meaningful connections to other people and places. Like Billy, Woolly longs for adventure, but Woolly has no outlet to pursue adventure safely. He loathes the monotony of his privileged life and yearns for each day to be a “one-of-a-kind kind of day” instead of an “every-day day.” His desire to replace monotony with adventure leads to a dislike of the people and institutions who enforce “every-day days,” and Woolly’s quests for adventure frequently get him into trouble, such as when he borrows Emmett’s Studebaker and nearly gets arrested. Billy’s impulse for adventure lets him explore the world with hope and wonder, but adventure that is not channeled in this hopeful direction can be isolating and dangerous.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Compare and contrast themes from other texts to this theme…
Adventure ThemeTracker
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Adventure appears in each chapter of The Lincoln Highway. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Adventure Quotes in The Lincoln Highway
Below you will find the important quotes in The Lincoln Highway related to the theme of Adventure.
9. Woolly
Quotes
[…] it suddenly occurred to Woolly that maybe, just maybe, St. George’s and St. Mark’s and St. Paul’s organized every day to be an every-day day not because it made things easier to manage, but because it was the best possible means to prepare the fine young men in their care to catch the 6:42 so that they would always be on time for their meetings at 8:00.
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8. Emmett
Quotes
Billy touched the empty page with a hint of reverence.
––This is where Professor Abernathe invites you to set down the story of your own adventure.
––I guess you haven’t had your adventure yet, said Emmett with a smile.
––I think we’re on it now, said Billy.
8. Emmett (2)
Quotes
But what weighed on his father the most […] was the realization that when Emmett’s mother had gripped her husband’s hand as the fireworks began, it hadn’t been in gratitude for his persistence, for his fealty and support, it had been in gratitude that by gently coaxing her from her malaise in order to witness this magical display, he had reminded her of what joy could be, if only she were willing to leave her daily life behind.
7. Ulysses
Quotes
[Ulysses] understood that the consequences of what he had done should be irrevocable. That is what had led him […] into the life of a vagabond––a life destined to be lived without companionship or purpose.
But maybe the boy was right…
Maybe by placing his own sense of shame above the sanctity of their union, by so readily condemning himself to a life of solitude, he had betrayed his wife a second time.
3. Sally
Quotes
So, if the will to move is as old as mankind […], what happens to a man like my father? What switch is flicked […] that takes the God-given will for motion and transforms it into the will for staying put?
[…] If you asked them what brought about the change, they will cloak it in the language of virtue. They will tell you that the American Dream is to settle down, raise a family, make an honest living. […] But maybe the will to stay put stems not from a man’s virtues but from his vices. […] I do believe that the Good Lord has a mission for each and every one of us […]. But maybe […] what He hopes for us is that––like His only begotten son––we will go out into the world and find it for ourselves.
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2. Woolly
Quotes
––I’ll start in front of the cabinet at FAO Schwarz, he said to himself with a smile. And my sister will come […]. And after Duchess meets me at the statue of Abraham Lincoln, he and I will attend the circus, where Billy and Emmett will suddenly reappear. Then we’ll go over the Brooklyn Bridge and up the Empire State Building, where we’ll meet Professor Abernathe. Then it’s off to the grassy train tracks where, sitting by the fire, we’ll hear the story of the two Ulysses and the ancient seer who explained how they could find their ways home again––how they could find their ways home, after ten long years.
But one mustn’t rush, thought Woolly […]. For a one-of-kind kind of day deserves to be relived at the slowest possible pace, with every moment, every twist, every turn of events remembered to the tiniest detail.
2. Abacus
Quotes
Though Abacus had no infirmities to speak of yet, his world too was shrinking. […] And then […] a little boy from Nebraska appears at his doorstep with a gentle demeanor and a fantastical tale. A tale not from a leather-bound tome, mind you. Not from an epic poem written in an unspoken language. […] But from life itself.
How easily we forget––we in the business of storytelling––that life was the point all along.
