Johnny Tremain

Johnny's arrogance in Chapter 1 is shown to be genuinely connected to genuine talent. Why does Forbes make him both truly gifted and truly insufferable? What would be lost if he were merely arrogant without ability, or humble without gifts?

Dove never intended to cripple Johnny — he just wanted to see him fail a little. How does Forbes use this to make a point about the relationship between ordinary meanness and catastrophic consequence?

Why does Johnny steal food rather than ask for it? What does this tell us about how he understands dignity and dependence?

Compare Johnny and Rab as characters. What does each have that the other lacks? Why does Forbes make them such precise opposites?

James Otis's speech — 'a man can stand up' — gives the novel its final chapter title and its central argument. Why does Forbes give the novel's clearest moral statement to the character who is losing his mind?

The silver cup with the Lyte crest is Johnny's only connection to a family with money and name. He ultimately rejects this connection. Why? What does he choose instead, and what makes that choice satisfying?

Forbes portrays the British soldier Pumpkin sympathetically — a homesick young man who just wants a quiet farm. How does this complicate the novel's treatment of the revolution? Does Forbes think the British soldiers are villains?

Forbes wrote this novel in 1943, during World War II, with her son serving overseas. How might knowing this change your reading of Rab's death and Johnny's decision to take up the musket?

The novel's title comes from a spy's alias that Johnny uses — and it is also a reference to a real historical figure. Research the historical Johnny Tremain. How does Forbes use a real name and transform it? What is gained or lost by blurring fiction and history?

Cilla Lapham sees Johnny clearly — his faults and his worth — from the first chapter. How does this affect your trust in her as a character? Is a character who sees everyone accurately more reliable than a character who idolizes?

Johnny spends most of Chapters 3-5 being rejected by Boston's tradespeople. How does the experience of repeated rejection change him? Is the rejection ultimately necessary for who he becomes?

Forbes describes the Boston Tea Party with deliberate plainness — cold, dark, organized, smelling of fish. Why doesn't she make it more dramatic and heroic? What effect does the restraint produce?

Samuel Adams is the shrewdest political mind in the Observer group, but he is not the most eloquent or the most principled. What does Forbes say about leadership by making Adams the strategist rather than the prophet?

The novel follows a specific historical timeline — the Tea Party, the Intolerable Acts, Lexington and Concord — without distortion. How does knowing that the events are real affect your emotional response to Johnny's story?

Johnny's crippled hand prevents him from silversmithing but not from riding, observing, and carrying messages. In a strange way, the accident makes him available for the patriot cause. Is this ironic, or is Forbes making a larger argument about how obstacles become paths?

Rab barely expresses emotion throughout the novel. His goodbye to Johnny before Lexington is almost wordless. Why is this more moving than a dramatic farewell would be?

Forbes shows ordinary Bostonians — shopkeepers, workers, servants — suffering from the harbor closure that the patriots caused with the Tea Party. Does she suggest that the revolution is wrong? Or is she saying something more complicated about the cost of political action?

Doctor Warren tells Johnny his hand can be repaired at the novel's end. Why does Forbes introduce this possibility only in the last chapter? What would be different if the repair had been possible from Chapter 3?

The phrase 'a man can stand up' is about dignity and self-determination. Apply it to someone in the novel who is NOT a white male colonist — Cilla, Pumpkin, or an enslaved person in Boston. Does the phrase extend to them? Does Forbes address this?

Compare Johnny at the beginning of Chapter 1 to Johnny at the end of Chapter 12. What are the five most important things that changed, and what caused each change?

Forbes gives the novel its most important line — 'a man can stand up' — to a character who is mentally deteriorating. What does this choice suggest about the relationship between clarity and sanity, or between truth and institutional credibility?

Johnny carries messages he doesn't always fully understand. He acts on faith in specific people rather than full knowledge. Is this courage or naivety? Can you distinguish between the two in a revolutionary situation?

How does the novel treat the question of loyalty — to a master, to a family, to a cause, to a friend? Are these loyalties ever in conflict for Johnny, and how does he resolve them?

Forbes won the Pulitzer Prize for her biography of Paul Revere, then wrote this novel. Revere appears as a character in the novel but is not its center. What does Forbes gain by making a fictional boy the protagonist rather than the famous historical figure?

The silver cup that ties Johnny to the Lyte family is the novel's most literal symbol of inherited identity. By the end of the novel, what replaces it? What object or relationship represents Johnny's actual identity?

Forbes was writing for an audience of young Americans in 1943 who were watching their country go to war. How might that audience have read Rab's death and Johnny's decision to fight differently from a modern reader?

Identify three moments in the novel where pride motivates good behavior and three where it causes harm. What does Forbes ultimately argue about pride — is it a virtue, a flaw, or something more complicated?

The novel ends before the revolution is won — or even fairly begun. Why does Forbes choose this ending point? What would be different if the novel ended at Yorktown, with American independence secured?

Mr. Lapham is devout, kind, and increasingly incompetent. Johnny respects him very little. By the end of the novel, do you think Johnny has changed his estimate of the old man? What does the novel say about patience and piety as values?

If Johnny Tremain were published today, what would likely be different about its treatment of race, gender, and empire? Does updating a historical novel for modern sensibilities improve it or distort it?