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Adolescence and Responsibility
Themes and Colors
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Orbiting Jupiter, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
In Orbiting Jupiter, prejudice prevents some adults from giving traumatized children and adolescents the help they need. Fourteen-year-old foster kid Joseph Brook clearly needs help: before he came to live with the Hurds, his father, Mr. Brook, was beating him, and his beloved Madeleine, the mother of his baby, died due to complications of childbirth. After taking unidentified pills and violently attacking a teacher, Joseph was sent to Stone Mountain, a juvenile detention center where other boys beat him and (it is implied) sexually assaulted him. Yet when Joseph’s social worker Mrs. Stroud gets him placed in foster care after the repeated assaults, several adults at his new school respond to his obvious disadvantage with prejudice rather than support. The bus driver Mr. Haskell refers to Joseph mockingly as “that kid that has a kid” in front of all the other students on the bus. The vice principal Mr. Canton warns Joseph’s foster brother Jack Hurd that Stone Mountain boys like Joseph have “brains [that] work differently,” causing them to act out violently. Initially, the Language Arts teacher Mrs. Halloway treats Joseph like a bomb that might go off, though she later comes to support him. Through these incidents, the novel illustrates how disadvantaged kids in foster care sometimes face social prejudice from adults who are supposed to be supporting them—making their difficult lives even harder.
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Prejudice ThemeTracker
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Prejudice appears in each chapter of Orbiting Jupiter. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Prejudice Quotes in Orbiting Jupiter
Below you will find the important quotes in Orbiting Jupiter related to the theme of Prejudice.
Chapter 1
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They sent Joseph to Stone Mountain, even though he did what he did because the kid gave him something bad and he swallowed it. But that didn’t matter. They sent him to Stone Mountain anyway.
He won’t talk about what happened to him there. But since he left Stone Mountain, he won’t wear anything orange.
He won’t let anyone stand behind him.
He won’t let anyone touch him.
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“I don’t need the milk,” said my father. He pointed at Rosie. “But she needs you to milk her.”
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”Do you think Joseph will fit in?” my mother asked me later.
“Rosie loves him,” I said.
I didn’t need to say anything more. You can tell all you need to know about someone from the way cows are around him.
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“I respect your parents, I really do. They’re trying to make a difference in the world, bringing kids like Joseph Brook into a normal family. But kids like Joseph Brook aren’t always normal, see? They act the way they do because their brains work differently. They don’t think like you and I think. So they can do things . . .”
Chapter 3
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“Being responsible,” Mr. Canton said, “means being ready to do what you’re supposed to be doing, even if no one is watching or making you do it. Do you boys understand that?”
“Joseph,” she said, “we began poorly. Shall we try again?”
Chapter 5
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“You might get suspended for fighting. All because you were hanging around Joseph Brook. I’m telling you, I know his type. Trouble follows him like a yellow dog.”
“I’ve seen what happens to yellow dogs,” I said.
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Chapter 7
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Mr. Canton had already come by, so full of himself, my mother said, all about how he knew something like this would happen, and kids who come from Stone Mountain are bound to run off, and it’s not our fault, it’s just that’s who Joseph Brook is.
