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When Johnny Tremain begins, the protagonist is a fourteen-year-old boy. The novel ends less than two years later, and Johnny Tremain is a sixteen-year-old man. His rapid maturation is largely a function of the extreme political climate of his time. As a messenger and spy for the colonial rebel leaders, Johnny is thrust into life-and-death circumstances. To protect himself and those he works for, he must abandon many of the childish proclivities of his past. Working as a small-time spy, he is forced to develop into a trustworthy, patient young man, since he might have to listen carefully to hours of conversation just to glean a small tidbit of information. He must also learn to restrain his quick temper and impetuousness to survive during the turbulent and dangerous Revolutionary period. Most dramatically, Johnny is forced to focus on something larger than his own individual concerns. Because of the war, Johnny must fight and die for the independence of his fellow colonists, and he turns his fervor and passions outward. He leaves behind his callow selfishness and becomes a steadfast, patriotic man, eager to fight and die for his country.The preternatural maturity demanded of boys in times of war is also clearly exhibited in the character of Rab. When Johnny first encounters Rab, the sixteen-year-old boy is already a man: he is self-possessed, fearless, and ready to die for his beliefs. Rab seems almost unbelievably precocious. His advanced development becomes conceivable only when we realize that he has been involved in the secretive revolutionary effort for years already.  When we first meet Johnny, he chooses his battles very poorly. Rash and proud, he lashes out at anyone whom he thinks treats him with disrespect.
As Johnny befriends the Whigs of Boston, he undergoes many transformations. One of these transformations is a shedding of his truculent nature. Under Rab’s tutelage, Johnny learns to control his outrage at petty offenses. Johnny does not suppress his fervor, as the pious pacifist Mr. Lapham would have preferred. Rather, Johnny redirects his passion into a worthy cause. Instead of petty and personal outrage, Johnny begins to feel a deep and meaningful commitment to a battle worth fighting for—a battle for freedom and for the equality of all men.

Johnny’s cause is ultimately the colonies’ cause, as the colonial rebels eventually choose to fight for the rights and freedom of men. Like Johnny, though, the colonists evolve from fighting petty skirmishes to a revolution for independence. After nearly a decade of boycotts and other minor insurrections, the rebel leaders finally conceive the compelling reasons for a war against Britain. Their ideology crystallizes, and the leaders make it clear that their cause is a fight for the equality of all mankind, rather than a small-minded fight for their own pocketbooks. With an understanding of their new ideology, and a grasp of the scale of their fight, they realize that boycotts and other minor rebellions are not the best means for their ends. The colonists realize that they must focus their efforts and fight a war for only one thing: independence. Once the colonists realize what is worth fighting for, they begin the process of maturing into a country.Johnny’s transformation from selfish child to selfless man begins when he meets Rab Silsbee. The immediate connection he feels to the understated, temperate Rab signals something deep within his own character that we did not see before. Johnny is drawn to the elements in Rab’s character that are opposite to his own, and he soon finds himself trying to change to become more like Rab. Days after he first meets Rab, he is already comparing his own actions to Rab’s and wondering what Rab would do in certain situations. The new Johnny that eventually emerges, we are led to believe, might never have existed had Johnny not chosen to build a friendship with Rab and Rab’s world.
Johnny is not the only evolving character in the book.

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THE TIME AND PLACE

The story of Johnny Tremain takes place mainly in Boston, beginning in the summer of 1773 and ending in April 1775. At this time, Boston was an important colonial city with a thriving economy. The thirteen American colonies were well established and had grown in population to two and a half million. The geographic area of the colonies was larger than that of the mother country, Great Britain. Transportation within and between colonies was very slow, with horse or horsedrawn carriage the fastest method of travel. Mail service was minimal and news could take days, weeks, or months to circulate. The circumstances leading to the momentous historical events described in Johnny Tremain had been brewing for more than a decade. In 1763 Great Britain found itself deeply in debt after the end of the French and Indian War. The British government decided that it was time that the American colonies helped pay for their own defense. Between 1763 and 1775, the British Parliament approved a variety of laws requiring colonists to pay new taxes. Many colonists objected strongly to paying these taxes because they had no representatives in Parliament. Thus, they said, Parliament had no authority to tax them. “No taxation without representation” became the rallying cry of colonists opposed to the new taxes.One of the new laws, the Stamp Act, meant colonists had to pay a tax—in cash—for most products made from or using paper.As this tax affected nearly every purchas e,the colonists decided to protest by boycotting, or refusing to buy, British goods.Some protests led to violence. The most important effect of the Stamp Act, however, was that the colonies began to unify. People like Sam Adams began to organize groups dedicated to the cause of fighting British tyranny. Another event that helped trigger the American Revolution was the Boston Massacre in 1770. Confusion during a routine street dispute led to violence and bloodshed between colonists and British soldiers who were stationed in Boston. This event further convinced Patriots such as Sam Adams that all the colonies should unite against Great Britain. He encouraged regular communication between important leaders from the different colonies. Eventually, Adams’s “committees of correspondence” became the Continental Congress, which met for the first time in 1774. As early as 1767, the British were taxing the tea that was shipped to the American colonies. Some colonists began boycotting British tea; as a result, tea exporters such as The East India Company lost a great deal of money. To help this important business, the British government gave it exclusive rights to sell tea in the American Colonies, under The Tea Act of 1773. In September of that year, the East India Company filled seven ships with tea bound for the colonies. These ships, carrying hundreds of thousands of pounds of tea, were headed for Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston. Protests broke out in all these cities, and several of the ships turned back to England. The ships bound for Boston reached their destination in November 1773. The Patriots responded with a dramatic protest from people like Johnny Tremain.

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The story of Johnny Tremain begins in 1773 in the Boston home and workshop of old Mr. Lapham, a master silversmith. Fourteen-year-old Johnny Tremain is one of

three apprentices who live with the Lapham family while learning the silversmith trade. Although Johnny is an orphan, he had the advantage of a mother who taught him to read and write. These abilities, along with Johnny’s intelligence and superior skill as an apprentice silversmith, make him overly proud. He does not make friends with his haughty attitude toward the other two apprentices. Johnny is so proud and aware of his value to

the Laphams that, at times, he even treats his master’s family disrespectfully.
Fourteen-year-old Johnny Tremain is the gifted apprentice of Ephraim Lapham, a silversmith in Revolutionary-era Boston. The pious and elderly Mr. Lapham is more interested in preparing his own soul for death than in running his silver shop, so Johnny is the chief breadwinner of the family. Dove and Dusty, Lapham’s other apprentices, are expected to bow to Johnny’s authority, and Mrs. Lapham is determined to have Johnny marry her daughter Cilla. Johnny’s enormous talent and his special status in the Lapham household go to his head, and Johnny often bullies the lazy, insolent Dove, as well as Dusty and the four Lapham daughters. Although Mr. Lapham tries to contain Johnny’s arrogance, Johnny is unwilling to rein in his quick temper or impulsive acts.

At the beginning, Johnny is an arrogant and impulsive boy, but then life knocks him around quite a bit. He runs into some bad luck and also creates some problems for himself with his excessive pride. He has to face his problems and try to figure out who he is and what matters to him. When the dramatic events of the American Revolution started Johnny will decide what ideas and beliefs are worth fighting for. Johnny is far more interested in his personal ambitions than in the political turmoil brewing all around him. At this time, the colonies were on the eve of the American Revolution, and Boston was a hotbed of tension and unrest. Many colonists were fiercely engaged in debating how much control Great Britain should have over the colonies and whether to form a separate nation.

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Johnny’s disdainful treatment of others leads to resentment, and this resentment leads to a disfiguring accident that ruins Johnny’s future as a silversmith. With a crippled hand, Johnny cannot find skilled work, and he allows himself to feel self-pity and despair. Dangerously close to giving up all hope of an honest life, Johnny almost turns to crime. Yet, due to his new job with the Boston Observer, the Whig newspaper, and his friendship with Rab Silsbee, the Lornes, and the leaders of the revolution. Johnny participates in the Boston Tea Party, and becomes a confidant, small-time Whig spy, and errand boy for all the Whigs of Boston. During this period of Whig scheming, in the months leading up the Revolutionary War, Johnny slowly changes from a selfish, arrogant child into a selfless, idealistic man. Rab’s quiet influence teaches Johnny to control his temper, and the colonial situation provides Johnny with something larger than himself to care about. Johnny also matures through his growing recognition of his feelings for Cilla, who has gone to work as a servant in the Lyte home. On the eve of war between the colonists and Britain, the Tory Lytes plan to flee to England. Immediately before their departure, Lavinia Lyte approaches Johnny to tell him that she has investigated his claims of kinship and found them to be legitimate. She insists that her father had sincerely believed that Johnny was lying when he accused him, but admits that both father and daughter recognize that Johnny has a right to some of the Lyte property. Rab is mortally wounded when war breaks out in the battle of Lexington. Johnny is deeply shaken by Rab’s death, but he vows to continue the struggle for the human rights for which Rab sacrificed his life. Johnny himself transforming from a selfish boy into a patriotic man. On a conscious level, he models himself after his new best friend, Rab, trying to imitate the older boy’s quiet, unassuming confidence and mild temperament. Unconsciously, Johnny begins to care about something much larger than his own petty ambitions and comforts. Johnny suddenly becomes an ardent Whig and a soldier, not because he is part of the Lorne family but because he rationally believes in freedom and rights for the colonists.  Johnny has finally overcome his psychological and emotional handicaps. Doctor Warren tells Johnny that he can fix his disfigured hand, Johnny is proud of his country. Faced unexpectedly with the prospect of a restored hand, Johnny is less concerned about whether he will be able to resume his job as a silversmith than whether he will be able to fire a gun and serve his nascent country.

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The Lapham’s fortune and Johnny’s fame as a silversmith appear to take a turn for the better when the wealthy merchant John Hancock puts in an order for an elaborate silver basin. Mr. Lapham hesitates to take on such a difficult project, but the rash Johnny accepts the job on behalf of his master. That night, Johnny reveals his family secret to Cilla. He is related to Jonathan Lyte, a wealthy Boston merchant. Johnny’s mother revealed his ancestry to him before she died and gave him a silver cup engraved with the Lyte’s coat of arms. She instructed him to steer clear of the Lytes unless he had no other recourse.
Johnny struggles to design the silver basin’s handles, but he is dissatisfied with the result. After consulting Paul Revere, Johnny creates a mold for a perfect set of handles. While he is casting the wax model in silver, Dove deliberately hands him a cracked crucible. Dove’s intention is only to humble Johnny by playing a practical joke on him, but his prank results in a terrible accident that disfigures Johnny’s hand. No longer able to work as a silversmith’s apprentice, Johnny loses his status in the Lapham household. After the burn heals, Mrs. Lapham begins to complain of Johnny’s idleness and the expense of feeding him. She begins negotiating a business partnership with Mr. Tweedie, a silversmith from Baltimore, and forbids Johnny from marrying Cilla. Mr. Lapham urges Johnny to find a new trade, but promises to house him until he finds a new master. During his fruitless search, Johnny drops into Mr. Lorne’s print shop, where a Whig newspaper, the Boston Observer, is published. Mr. Lorne’s enigmatic nephew and apprentice Rab immediately intrigues Johnny. Johnny confides the story of his accident to Rab, and the boy promises Johnny a job delivering newspapers if he fails to find any skilled labor.