American Adam, American Cain: Johnny Tremain, Octavian Nothing, and the Fantasy of American Exceptionalism

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����� ��� Each summer, during Boston’s annual Harborfest, tourists and native Bostonians alike can take a guided tour of key historical sites that figure prominently in Esther Forbes’s award-winning children’s novel, Johnny Tremain (1943). The purpose of the tour, according to the Harborfest brochure, is to allow sightseers the opportunity to walk “the steps of Johnny”—the novel’s eponymous protagonist—in order to learn the “larger tale of America’s fight for freedom.” In preparation for the tour, participants are encouraged to read (or reread) Forbes’s novel, so that they may better appreciate the historical significance of such sites as Copps Burial Ground, Paul Revere’s home, and Old North Church—and so they might most fully relive a beloved childhood classic. Participants can take this excursion in tandem with other similarly literary-themed tours, such as those based on the lives and works of Louisa May Alcott and Henry James, or alongside other Revolutionary War-based tours on Boston’s “Freedom Trail.” 1 The primary purpose of the Johnny Tremain theme tour is didactic, intended to instruct school children (and their nostalgic guardians) in Revolutionary War history. Ironically, however, Johnny Tremain is not, strictly speaking, a Revolutionary War narrative. Indeed, as Eric Tribunella has noted, Forbes’s novel is frequently misread as a story “‘about’ a boy who fights in the Revolution, something Johnny never actually does” (88). Although the novel concludes with Johnny’s decision to take arms against the British, the bulk of its narrative is concerned with his moral development and his maturing political consciousness. Moreover, while the novel is frequently praised for its rich depiction of colonial-era history 2 —Forbes was a historian who also published a biography of Paul Revere—its endur