Johnny Tremain

by

Esther Forbes

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Patriotism and the Revolutionary War Theme Analysis

Themes and Colors
Coming of Age Theme Icon
Pride vs. Humility Theme Icon
Patriotism and the Revolutionary War Theme Icon
Violence Theme Icon
Moral Integrity and Class Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Johnny Tremain, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Patriotism and the Revolutionary War Theme Icon

Johnny Tremain takes place between 1773 and 1775, ending the day after the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired in Lexington, Massachusetts. As such, the war, the issues that led to war, and the brave colonists who led spy networks and the Patriot opposition color almost every aspect of the novel. Specifically, the novel pays close attention to what it means to be brave and fight for what one believes is right. Within months of injuring his hand, Johnny finds himself working for the Boston Observer, a newspaper printing seditious material. The patriotic spirit of the people at the Boston Observer captivates Johnny. There’s Uncle Lorne, the timid printer who insists that he’ll keep printing until he’s hanged; and James Otis, a lawyer who insists that the colonists are fighting not just for themselves, but for poor people around the world who will take the Americans’ righteous fight against the British as inspiration to topple their own tyrannical leaders.

Still, Johnny doesn’t fully internalize what the war is about until he witnesses the British shoot Pumpkin, a British soldier, for desertion. Johnny helped Pumpkin put together a disguise and a plan to escape Boston, and he was moved by Pumpkin’s simple desire to raise cows. Pumpkin’s violent death, the novel suggests, is senseless and cruel. As Johnny sees it, that a British soldier would take the Americans’ side highlights the Patriots’ righteousness. Thus, the novel proposes that it’s something uniquely American to be willing to stand up, risk one’s life, and inspire others to do the same by fighting for what one believes in—especially when doing so might cost a person their life.

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Patriotism and the Revolutionary War ThemeTracker

The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Patriotism and the Revolutionary War appears in each chapter of Johnny Tremain. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Patriotism and the Revolutionary War Quotes in Johnny Tremain

Below you will find the important quotes in Johnny Tremain related to the theme of Patriotism and the Revolutionary War.
Chapter 4 Quotes

Rab was obviously a Whig. ‘I can stomach some of the Tories,’ he went on, ‘men like Governor Hutchinson. They honestly think we’re better off to take anything from the British Parliament—let them break us down, stamp in our faces, take all we’ve got by taxes, and never protest. […] But I can’t stand men like Lyte, who care nothing for anything except themselves and their own fortune. Playing both ends against the middle.’

Related Characters: Rab (speaker), Johnny Tremain, Merchant Lyte, Governor Hutchinson
Related Symbols: Johnny’s Cup
Page Number: 82-83
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

Of all these things and people Cilla knew nothing, nor could he tell her, yet he tried to show interest in what she had to tell him. Once he would have been very interested. Now he felt like a hypocrite, and because he was uncomfortable he blamed it in some way on Cilla.

Related Characters: Johnny Tremain, Cilla Lapham
Page Number: 132
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

‘Uncle Lorne is upset. He says the printers will not be able to go on with the newspapers. He won’t be able to collect subscriptions, or get any advertising. He won’t be able to buy paper nor ink.’

‘He’s sending the Webb twins home?’

‘Yes. Back to Chelmsford. But he and I can manage. The Observer is to be half-size. He won’t give up. He’ll keep on printing, printing and printing about our wrongs—and our rights—until he drops dead at his press—or gets hanged.’

Related Characters: Johnny Tremain (speaker), Rab (speaker), Mr. Lorne/Uncle Lorne, The Webb Twins
Page Number: 154
Explanation and Analysis:

Rab, for instance, all that spring had been going to Lexington once or twice a week to drill with his fellow townsmen. But he could not beg nor buy a decent gun. He drilled with an old fowling piece his grandsire had given him to shoot ducks on the Concord River. Never had Johnny seen Rab so bothered about anything as he was over his inability to get himself a good modern gun.

‘I don’t mind their shooting at me,’ he would say to Johnny, ‘and I don’t mind shooting at them… but God give me a gun in my hands that can do better than knock over a rabbit at ten feet.’

Related Characters: Rab (speaker), Johnny Tremain
Related Symbols: Rab’s Musket
Page Number: 156
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

Johnny liked the old woman all the better that in the end she had been unable to see a considerate master, whom she had served for thirty years, a young woman whom she had taken care of since she was a baby, humiliated, tossed about, torn by a mob. Sam Adams might respect her the less for this weakness. Johnny respected her more.

Related Characters: Johnny Tremain, Cilla Lapham, Miss Lavinia Lyte, Merchant Lyte, Mrs. Bessie, Samuel Adams
Page Number: 188
Explanation and Analysis:

‘Rab! How’d you do it? How’d you get away?’

Rab’s eyes glittered. In spite of his great air of calm, he was angry.

‘Colonel Nesbit said I was just a child. “Go buy a popgun, boy,” he said. They flung me out the back door. Told me to go home.’

Then Johnny laughed. He couldn’t help it. Rab had always, as far as Johnny knew, been treated as a grown man and always looked upon himself as such.

‘So all he did was hurt your feelings.’

Related Characters: Johnny Tremain (speaker), Rab (speaker), Colonel Nesbit
Related Symbols: Rab’s Musket
Page Number: 199
Explanation and Analysis:

‘…For men and women and children all over the world,’ he said. ‘You were right, you tall, dark boy, for even as we shoot down the British soldiers we are fighting for rights such as they will be enjoying a hundred years from now.

‘…There shall be no more tyranny. A handful of men cannot seize power over thousands. A man shall choose who it is shall rule over him.

‘…The peasants of France, the serfs of Russia. Hardly more than animals now. But because we fight, they shall see freedom like a new sun rising in the west. Those natural rights God has given to every man, no matter how humble…’

Related Characters: James Otis (speaker), Johnny Tremain, Rab, Dr. Warren, Samuel Adams
Page Number: 209
Explanation and Analysis:

‘Each shall give according to his own abilities, and some’—he turned directly to Rab—‘some will give their lives. All the years of their maturity. All the children they never live to have. The serenity of old age. To die so young is more than merely dying; it is to lose so large a part of life.’

Related Characters: James Otis (speaker), Rab
Related Symbols: Rab’s Musket
Page Number: 211
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

Johnny knew he longed to own [Goblin] himself. He could, any moment, by merely saying ‘commandeer.’ And Johnny knew he never would say it.

From that day he and Johnny spent hours together jumping or exercising horses. Johnny almost worshiped him for his skill and almost loved him, because, ever and anon, he looked so much like Rab; but still it was only where horses were concerned they were equals. Indoors he was rigidly a British officer and a ‘gentleman’ and Johnny an inferior. This shifting about puzzled Johnny. It did not seem to puzzle the British officer at all.

Related Characters: Johnny Tremain, Rab, Merchant Lyte, Goblin, Lieutenant Stranger
Related Symbols: Johnny’s Cup
Page Number: 224
Explanation and Analysis:

He took one of [the smocks] from his sea chest in the attic. It was a fine light blue. He had never noticed before how beautiful was the stitching, and it hurt him to think he had been too proud to wear them, for now he was old enough to appreciate the love that had gone into their making. How little his mother had known of the working world to make smocks for a boy who she knew was to become a silversmith! She hadn’t known anything, really, of day labor, the life of apprentices. She had been frail, cast off, sick, and yet she had fought up to the very end for something. That something was himself, and he felt humbled and ashamed.

Related Characters: Johnny Tremain, Johnny’s Mother/Vinny, Pumpkin
Related Symbols: Johnny’s Cup
Page Number: 229
Explanation and Analysis:

Johnny put his hands to his face. It was wet and his hands were shaking. He thought of that blue smock his mother had made him, now torn by bullets. Pumpkin had wanted so little out of life. A farm. Cows. True, Rab had got the musket he craved, but Pumpkin wasn’t going to get his farm. Nothing more than a few feet by a few feet at the foot of Boston Common. That much Yankee land he’d hold to Judgement Day.

Related Characters: Johnny Tremain, Rab, Johnny’s Mother/Vinny, Pumpkin
Page Number: 234
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

The first two boats were filled with privates. They had been packed in, and now were being tossed ashore, like so much cordwood. Most of them were pathetically good and patient, but he saw an officer strike a man who was screaming.

Johnny’s hands clenched. ‘It is just as James Otis said,’ he thought. ‘We are fighting, partly, for just that. Because a man is a private is no reason he should be treated like cordwood.’

Related Characters: Johnny Tremain (speaker), James Otis
Page Number: 283
Explanation and Analysis:

‘I’ll never forget it. He said… so a man can stand up.’

‘Yes. And some of us would die—so other men can stand up on their feet like men. A great many are going to die for that. They have in the past. They will a hundred years from now—two hundred. God grant there will always be men good enough. Men like Rab.’

Related Characters: Johnny Tremain (speaker), Dr. Warren (speaker), Rab, James Otis
Related Symbols: Rab’s Musket
Page Number: 297
Explanation and Analysis:

‘Will it be good enough to hold this gun?’

‘I think I can promise you that.’

‘The silver can wait. When can you, Doctor Warren? I’ve got the courage.’

‘I’ll get some of those men in the taproom to hold your arm still while I operate.’

‘No need. I can hold it still myself.’

The Doctor looked at him with compassionate eyes.

‘Yes, I believe you can. You go walk about in the fresh air, while I get my instruments ready.’

Related Characters: Johnny Tremain (speaker), Dr. Warren (speaker), Rab, James Otis
Related Symbols: Rab’s Musket, Johnny’s Burnt Hand
Page Number: 297
Explanation and Analysis: