How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #1
What was it his mother had said so long ago? If there was nothing left and God Himself had turned away his face, then, and only then, Johnny was to go to Mr. Lyte. In his ears rang his mother's sweet remembered accents. Surely for one second, between sleeping and waking, he had seen her dear face, loving, gentle, intelligent, floating toward him through the moonlight on Copp's Hill.
He sat a long time with his arms hugging his knees. Now he knew what to do. This very day he would go to Merchant Lyte. When at last he lay down, he slept heavily, without a dream and without a worry. (3.5.7-8)
Sob. This is a rare moment of vulnerability for Johnny. He's hit rock bottom and then believes he's found the answer to his troubles, but we know Merchant Lyte is just another problem. Do you think Johnny's mother really believed Merchant Lyte would help her son or was it just wishful thinking?
Quote #2
It was past dawn when he woke, his feeling of contentment still in him. He was no longer his own problem but Merchant Lyte's. Tomorrow at this time what would he be calling him? "Uncle Jonathan?" "Cousin Lyte?" Perhaps "Grandpa," and he laughed out loud. (4.1.1)
Here, Johnny is letting his imagination run away with him as he thinks positive thoughts about his reception by Merchant Lyte. How does this compare to the scene in which Johnny discovers his true relationship to Merchant Lyte?
Quote #3
The front hall was very large. From it rose a flight of stairs, taking their time in rising, taking all the space they needed. Along the walls were portraits: Merchant Lyte in his handsome, healthy youth; Lavinia, painted long before in London, as regal a child as now she was a young woman. Time blackened old things, already a hundred years old. Was it their long dried blood which now ran red and living in Johnny's veins? (4.3.3)
We get a little ghostly shiver when the narrator talks about the Lytes. They're a very old and very wealthy Boston family, and the only place in the book where the narrator introduces gothic elements (creepy staircases, portraits that seem to be watching, ghostly footsteps) is when Johnny is in one of the Lytes's houses. What does this say about the role the Lytes play in the book, in Johnny's life, and in history?