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Chapter 7
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
For a few days after Joseph gets home, Mrs. Stroud and Mr. Canton sternly lecture him. Joseph decides to start walking to school again, with Mr. Hurd’s permission, rather than hear what Mr. Haskell is likely to say about him. Yet the librarian does write to Joseph every week about Jupiter, and Jack no longer hears Joseph crying out in his sleep. Joseph doesn’t have to do Office Duty at school anymore: Mr. D’Ulney has nominated him for the spring Math Olympiad and is using fifth period to teach him trigonometry. Coach Swieteck has put Joseph in charge of the kids who want to do track and field, and Mrs. Halloway, who saw him reading Walden, talks to him about Thoreau.
With a connection to his baby daughter and the support of his foster parents and non-prejudiced teachers, Joseph is clearly doing better: he no longer expresses trauma symptoms by crying out in his sleep, and he’s succeeding in school and sports. Joseph’s healing and success emphasize that Mr. Canton and other prejudiced adults are wrong to write traumatized foster children off: with the help of caring adults, they can heal and thrive.
Themes
In February, Mr. Hurd takes Joseph and Jack out to tap trees for maple syrup. When Joseph mentions that Jupiter would love doing this one day, Mr. Hurd pauses and then agrees. Later that night, Mr. Hurd and Mrs. Hurd retreat to their room immediately after dinner and make some phone calls. Meanwhile, Joseph asks whether he’s told Jack about the first time he and Madeleine danced. When Jack says yes, Joseph goes out, smiling, to milk Rosie the cow. Jack has finally lost count of the number of times he’s seen Joseph smile.
The novel does not explicitly state here that Mr. and Mrs. Hurd are trying to adopt Jupiter, but the sequence of events—Mr. Hurd agrees that Jupiter would love to tap trees with them one day, and then he and Mrs. Hurd start making phone calls—suggest that they want to adopt Jupiter, implicitly so that Joseph can love and have a relationship with his daughter without taking on full responsibility for raising her, which he is too young and immature to do. The brief reference to Rosie the cow—who has always expressed unconditional positive feelings toward Joseph—underscores that Rosie has been right about Joseph all along: he is a good, decent boy capable of flourishing in the right environment.
Themes
After many happy days, Joseph and Jack come home from school one afternoon and see an unfamiliar white pickup by the barn. Joseph orders Jack to go into the barn. Jack goes in there and waits—until he hears Mr. Hurd yell, “No!” Jack runs into the kitchen and sees Mrs. Hurd standing with Joseph. Mr. Hurd is standing in front of them, and Mr. Brook is by the door, holding a gun. Mr. Brook grabs Jack and orders Mr. Hurd to stop. Mr. Hurd does so. Mr. Brook—who smells like alcohol—tells Mr. Hurd that he only wants his son back, just like Mr. Hurd does. Mr. Hurd, pretending to be calm, says that they both “want what’s best” for their sons, but that Mr. Brook is going about it the wrong way.
Mr. Hurd says that he and Mr. Brook both “want what’s best” for their sons, but that clearly isn’t true. Mr. Hurd wants what’s best for Jack and Joseph, but Mr. Brook simply wants Joseph back to control, dominate, and abuse his son. Mr. Brook’s behavior makes clear that simply being a biological parent doesn’t necessarily make a person loving or self-sacrificing toward his children.
Themes
Joseph yells, “You sold her!” Mr. Brook retorts that Joseph was never going to have her (Jupiter) and that “we needed a new truck.” Joseph tries to rush Mr. Brook, but Mr. Hurd grabs him. Joseph sobs. When he finally stops, Mr. Brook orders him into the truck. Mr. Hurd moves Joseph behind him and tells Mr. Brook to let Jack go, get in his truck, and end the situation. Mr. Brook asks whether Mr. Hurd thinks he has control of the situation and puts his gun against Jack’s side. When Mr. Hurd points out that the police will pick Mr. Brook up if he leaves with Joseph, Mr. Brook suggests he’ll take Jack as a hostage.
Whereas (it is implied) Mr. Hurd and Mrs. Hurd planned to adopt Jupiter so that Joseph could have a relationship with her without taking on full adult responsibility for her, Mr. Brook has evidently arranged a for-profit adoption of Jupiter—without Joseph’s knowledge and against his wishes—to get money. The contrast between the Hurds’ selfless love for Joseph and Mr. Brook’s greedy selfishness again makes clear that being a good parent isn’t a matter of biology but of supportive, loving, and self-sacrificing behavior toward one’s children.
Themes
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Joseph says he’ll come with Mr. Brook but tells him to let Jack go. He walks out from behind Mr. Hurd. Mr. Brook takes the gun from Jack’s side. Joseph tugs Jack away from Mr. Brook and leads Mr. Brook out the door. As soon as the door closes, Mr. Hurd runs for the phone while Mrs. Hurd runs toward Jack. Jack looks out the window, sees Joseph glance back from the pickup truck, and meets Joseph’s eyes. Then the pickup drives away.
Previously, Jack has put himself in danger to protect Joseph, as when he inched onto the frozen river to pull Joseph out or jumped on Jay Perkins to keep Jay from punching Joseph. Now, Joseph puts himself in danger—cooperating with Mr. Brook’s kidnapping of him—to protect Jack. This mutual support and protection shows the boys’ goodness and the depth of their friendship.
Themes
After the fact, Jack and the Hurds reconstruct what happened: Mr. Brook was driving too fast. Mr. Canton, driving out of school, saw the white pickup coming at him down the road and braked. Mr. Brook T-boned him and knocked his car into some trees. Then Mr. Brook drove past the “Bridge Out” sign onto the derelict Alliance Bridge, which broke under the car. Two days later, the pickup is found in the river. Mr. Hurd goes, though he won’t let Jack accompany him. Mr. Hurd is the one to free Joseph’s body from the truck.
Mr. Brook’s selfishness and recklessness lead to Joseph’s death, underscoring how dangerous bad parenting can be to children. Meanwhile, Joseph’s death in the Alliance River was foreshadowed both by Jack’s memory of the yellow dog he couldn’t save and by Joseph’s earlier near-drowning before Jack pulled him out. When Joseph dies in the river, then, it shows that Jack—no matter how much he loved Joseph—is too young to protect his foster brother from evil adult behavior.
Themes
At Joseph’s funeral three days later, in the side chapel of First Congregational, Jack counts Mr. D’Ulney, Mr. Canton, Mrs. Halloway, a weeping Coach Swieteck, Mr. Hurd, Mrs. Hurd, the librarian, the Baptist pastor from near Lewiston, Mrs. Stroud, and three of his friends from the bus as the only attendees. Reverend Ballou asks whether anyone would like to speak. Mr. Hurd looks at Jack, but Jack is too afraid he’ll cry. Reverend Ballou talks about angels and then whispers, “Where the hell were they?” The attendees pray.
At Christmas Eve services, Joseph asked Reverend Ballou, “Where they hell were they?” In that moment, Joseph seemed to be asking where the angels who are supposed to accompany people in evil times were during his past moments of trauma. When Reverend Ballou repeats the question to himself, he is clearly wondering where the angels—and, implicitly, God—were when Mr. Brook’s traumatizing abuse of Joseph culminated in Joseph’s death.
Themes
The funeral attendees go to the local cemetery where the Hurd ancestors are buried and place Joseph’s coffin among them. Reverend Ballou says that Joseph risked his own safety to protect others and says, “Greater love hath no man that this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Jack starts sobbing because Joseph was more than his friend: they had each other’s backs, and “that’s what greater love is.”
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend” is a Gospel quotation (John 15:13). In the Biblical context, Jesus Christ is speaking to his disciples, calling them his friends and implicitly predicting his own death by crucifixion to save them—and all humanity—from sin. When Reverend Ballou quotes this passage, it implies that he knows Joseph cooperated with Mr. Brook’s kidnapping to protect Jack, sacrificing himself to save his foster brother (though Joseph, of course, certainly didn’t know he’d die). Implicitly, then, Jack starts crying because he realized his and Joseph’s friendship transcended ordinary friendship: they had the “greater love” for each other that includes mutual support, altruism, and self-sacrifice.
Themes
