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Chapter 6
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Orbiting Jupiter, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Parenthood
Adolescence and Responsibility
Prejudice
Trauma and Trust
Friendship and Love
Summary
Analysis
As Mr. Hurd and Jack drive out of Eastham, it begins to snow hard. They don’t see Joseph on the road, and after 45 minutes, they turn around. By the time they get home, Mrs. Hurd has called Mrs. Stroud, who has notified the police. Evidently the police notified the school: Mr. Canton came by the house and told Mrs. Hurd that the Hurds shouldn’t blame themselves—kids like Joseph from Stone Mountain do things like this. Mrs. Hurd tells Mr. Hurd and Jack that she wanted to whack Mr. Canton with a pan.
Mr. Canton continues to stereotype Joseph as a “foster kid from Stone Mountain,” as if they are all the same and all bad. When Mrs. Hurd admits she wanted to whack Mr. Canton with a pan, she expresses her extreme protectiveness of Joseph, showing that she has developed strong maternal feelings for her foster son.
Themes
Mr. Hurd, Mrs. Hurd, and Jack wait for a call and worry about Joseph. Late in the evening, Jack goes to his bedroom and looks out the window but can’t see Jupiter. He wonders whether Joseph knows that he’ll never get Madeleine or Jupiter back. He speculates that Joseph knows but headed to Brunswick anyway.
When Jack tries to understand Joseph’s motives and point of view, he demonstrates his empathy and care for Joseph. His speculation that Joseph knows running away will be fruitless suggests that Joseph really is acting out of overwhelming adolescent emotion rather than any kind of rational plan, which demonstrates both Joseph’s love for Jupiter and his immaturity.
Themes
The next morning, Mrs. Stroud calls and says that no one has found Joseph. Jack skips school to wait at home for news. The day after that, Mrs. Stroud calls again with no news. Mr. Hurd asks Mrs. Hurd, who is holding the phone, to tell Mrs. Stroud that they are thinking of going to Brunswick. When Mrs. Hurd does, Mrs. Stroud tries to dissuade them and suggests that they’re getting too emotionally involved in Joseph’s case. Mrs. Hurd hangs up on her and announces that they’re going to Brunswick.
Mrs. Stroud’s claim that the Hurds are too emotionally involved with Joseph’s case misses an obvious point: Mr. and Mrs. Hurd have come to love Joseph like a son, while Jack is Joseph’s closest friend. They are already as emotionally involved in Joseph’s case as it is possible to be—a fact underscored by Mrs. Hurd hanging up on Mrs. Stroud.
Themes
On the drive to Brunswick, Mr. Hurd stops everywhere Joseph might have sought shelter, and Mrs. Hurd shows people a photo of Joseph. At a Baptist church near Lewiston, a pastor tells them that he found Joseph sheltering in the church the previous morning. The pastor gave Joseph breakfast and asked for his parents’ number. When the pastor went to call the number, he reached a real estate agent, and when he went back to talk to Joseph, he found that Joseph had vanished. He asks Joseph’s real name and Jack’s name. When Jack responds “Joseph Brook” and “Jack,” the pastor says he’ll pray for Joseph and “Jack Brook.” When Mrs. Hurd explains that’s not Jack’s name, the pastor asks whether Jack isn’t Joseph’s brother. Jack replies, “I have his back.”
When the pastor asks whether Jack isn’t Joseph’s brother, Jack replies, “I have his back.” This response underscores that Jack and Joseph do not need to have a biological relationship for Jack to love Joseph, support him, and want to take care of him.
Themes
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The Hurds don’t meet anyone else who has seen Joseph on the way to Brunswick. When they reach Brunswick, Jack suggests they split up. Mr. Hurd agrees, giving Jack Joseph’s photo. After 90 minutes of searching, Jack is freezing. He spies a library, heads inside, and shows Joseph’s photo to some librarians. One librarian asks why Joseph came to Brunswick. When Jack explains that Joseph is looking for his daughter Jupiter, the librarian—clearly startled—asks whether Joseph is Jupiter’s father, remarking that Joseph is “just a baby himself.”
When the librarian says that Joseph is “just a baby himself,” she echoes what Mr. Haskell, police officers, and other adults have said about Joseph: he is a child who has a child. Once again, the novel is drawing attention to the fact that Joseph is capable of loving Jupiter but not of taking full responsibility for her. Meanwhile, the librarian’s apparent familiarity with the name Jupiter hints that she knows where Jupiter is.
Themes
Jack, realizing that the librarian knows where Jupiter is, begs her to let Joseph see his daughter. The librarian asks who Jack is, and Jack says, “I have [Joseph’s] back.” The librarian suggests that a meeting might be bad for Joseph and Jupiter. She says that Joseph needs to accept that he and Jupiter are not going to reunite permanently because he doesn’t have the resources to care for her. Jack retorts that Joseph can love Jupiter. The librarian, on the verge of tears, agrees. But if Joseph loves Jupiter, the librarian insists, then he needs to let her have the good life a “new home” can offer her.
Once again, Jack defines his relationship with Joseph by saying, “I have [Joseph’s] back,” emphasizing the friendship, mutual support, and love that binds them together rather than their mere legal relationship (foster brothers). When the librarian argues that Joseph can best express his love for Jupiter by letting her have a “new home,” meanwhile, she is making clear that Joseph’s desire to raise Jupiter is in some sense selfish—that it's more about Joseph’s emotional needs than Jupiter’s.
Themes
Jack asks whether the librarian is Jupiter’s foster mother. She asks Jack to tell Joseph that Jupiter is well but needs a permanent family, which Joseph and Mr. Brook should let her have. Jack—who knows that Joseph would be furious if Jack told him that—asks the librarian to tell Jupiter that Joseph loves her and tried to find her. The librarian agrees.
Again, the librarian argues that if Joseph really loves Jupiter, he should put her need for responsible adult parents over his desire to raise her himself. Jack’s private acknowledgement that Joseph would be furious to hear such an argument alludes to Joseph’s tumultuous adolescent emotions and lack of adult maturity.
Themes
Jack, holding back tears, is walking away when the librarian’s phone rings. She answers it, asks someone to describe “him,” and then identifies “him” as Jupiter’s father. When she hangs up, Jack asks whether Joseph is at her house. She says that her husband just told her Joseph has been pacing around outside and asks whether he and Jack coordinated their approaches. Jack denies it and says that he and the librarian should leave now. The librarian says that she’s going to leave—but Jack should go home. Jack insists that he “has [Joseph’s] back.” The librarian grudgingly agrees to take Jack. When she asks whether he minds that she’ll drive, he admits that he’s 12.
Jack has been trying to protect and support his foster brother—to be the one who “has [Joseph’s] back”—but at 12, Jack can’t take full responsibility for Joseph’s well-being any more than 14-year-old Joseph can take full responsibility for Jupiter’s well-being. By reminding readers of Jack’s age here, the novel underscores both his increasing maturity—his attempts to care for Joseph—and his ultimate lack of responsibility for Joseph’s well-being, which responsible adults ought to be attending to.
Themes
On the drive, the librarian gives Jack ground rules: he needs to stay in the car, not intervene when they reach her house, and contact his parents as soon as they’ve found Joseph. When they pull into the librarian’s driveway, Joseph is outside. The librarian gets out of the car and talks to Joseph, who shakes his head repeatedly. Shortly afterward, two policemen show up. One policeman touches Joseph’s arm, and Joseph quickly backs away. When the policeman advances on Joseph, the librarian holds up a hand, says something to Joseph and the policemen, and rushes into her house. She comes out with a photo, gives it to Joseph, and walks Joseph to her car.
When Joseph quickly backs away from the policemen, it suggests that he is having an instinctive trauma response to one policeman touching him. The librarian, a foster parent who may understand trauma, intervenes somehow when she sees the policeman advancing on Joseph—though because the novel’s narrator Jack is in the car witnessing the interaction without sound, readers don’t learn exactly what she said.
Themes
The librarian opens one of her car doors and asks Joseph to get in, telling him it’s the best she can do right now. Joseph asks Jack why he’s there. When Jack explains that he was looking for Joseph, Joseph smiles, gets in the car, and shows Jack the photo of Jupiter. The librarian drives the boys to where Jack parted from his parents: Mr. Hurd and Mrs. Hurd are still there, searching. When Joseph gets out of the librarian’s car, the Hurds rush to him and hug him.
Joseph’s smile when he learns that Jack was looking for him shows his increasing affection for Jack. When he shows Jack the photo of Jupiter, meanwhile, it shows that he trusts Jack with his most treasured, private emotional life. The Hurds’ intensely relieved reaction to seeing Joseph, meanwhile, highlights their parental love for him.
Themes
The librarian hugs Joseph, too. She tells him that he looks like Jupiter and has her “determined” personality. When the librarian says that her family is taking excellent care of Jupiter, Joseph replies, “I’m her father.” The librarian promises to write to Joseph and to tell Jupiter all about Joseph. On the drive home with the Hurds, Joseph is silent. That night in his and Jack’s shared bedroom, Joseph—standing at the window with Jupiter’s photo—says to Jack, “you still have my back.” Jack agrees. Joseph thanks him.
The librarian acknowledges Joseph and Jupiter’s parent-child bond by comparing their “determined” personalities and promising to write to Joseph about Jupiter. At the same time, by making clear that she is taking good care of Jupiter, she indirectly suggests that Joseph needs to let responsible adults care for his baby daughter. Joseph’s reply, “I’m her father,” shows that he isn’t yet reconciled to letting other people raise his daughter. Meanwhile, his later comment to Jack, “you still have my back,” expresses Joseph’s appreciation for Jack’s friendship and loyalty.
Themes
