Adam of the Road

Another prevalent theme in this story is the journey of losing one’s childlike innocence and learning to think like an adult. When the story opens, Adam is naive and trusting, believing the best about everything around him. He slowly begins to realize that there is injustice in the world and that not everyone is as good and trustworthy as he believes. Even his own father, though he is a good man, has vices. Early in the novel, Adam is anxious about Roger’s gambling and sees firsthand the consequences of his father’s actions when Roger loses all his money and his horse to Jankin. After this episode, Roger gives his son responsibility for their money because he does not trust himself with it, forcing Adam to assume a more grown-up role in the family (92).

Adam is still naive, however, and has an unwavering belief that Roger will take care of him. When Adam runs from him to catch Jankin and Nick, he has no doubt that his father will follow and find him. Only much later does Adam realize that Roger is not all-knowing:

For the first time it occurred to Adam that perhaps Roger did not know where he was. After all, he had just shouted and run, and it had been a very twisted way he followed, in and out among the barrels and back lanes, and along the winding river path. Perhaps Roger did not know where he was! (152).

This passage portrays an important moment in Adam’s coming of age. This is the first moment Adam realizes he must think about things outside himself and his impulses, as he is now on his own and must take responsibility for his own survival.

At first, it is easier for Adam to find an adult and simply listen to what the adult says than to forge his own path. Even when Adam disagrees, he yields to the adult’s judgment. For example, when Daun William is so confident that Roger left for Giles Fair, Adam has doubts, but he thinks, “After all, he was only a little boy, and the merchant was grown-up and rich and wise” (165). This mindset dominates Adam’s thinking for the first half of the book. However, the more time Adam spends on his own, the more he begins to question what he is told and form his own opinions: “The road, Roger had said, was home to a minstrel, but, thought Adam, which road?” (164).

Adam continues to gain confidence in who he is and what he wants. When Master Walter and Dame Prudence expect him to be a parish clerk, Adam realizes this is not the path he wants to follow: “He was a minstrel” (226). In a moment of loneliness and reverting to his tendency to yield to adults’ authority, Adam decides to trust the de Vesey family and travel with them. He later learns, “They were the wrong kind of minstrels. He did not want to be like them any more than he wanted to be a parish clerk; he was going to be a real minstrel like Roger” (251). Lastly, when Adam is given an opportunity to be a student at Oxford, he replies, “No, thank you, […] I am a minstrel, I want to be on the road with you” (316). His identity as a specific type of minstrel becomes clear to him through his journey, and he learns to hold to it with confidence despite external pressures to follow other routes.

Adam’s coming of age is also confirmed by the ways his father reacts to him. The first time Roger and Adam interact, it is very obviously a greeting between a father and a young son. Early in the book, Roger says, “How, boy! Why, grant mercy, it’s Adam!”; Adam flings himself into his father’s arms (38). The way Roger receives Adam at the end of the book, however, is a man’s greeting of an equal:

Before the Warden and Perkin they merely shook hands, but in that instant Adam noticed that Roger had a fine pair of embroidered gloves and that he took off the right one to shake hands with Adam as if he had been a nobleman. Roger’s hand was warm and strong, and Adam clung to it, too happy to speak (316).

The comparison of these greetings shows Adam’s maturation from a boy into a man, highlighting the theme of Losing Childlike Innocence and Coming of Age.