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Chapter 4
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
The following Friday, Coach Swieteck has left a substitute to run PE. When class ends, Jack looks around and realizes that Joseph is in the locker room—and that Jay Perkins, Nick Porter, and Brian Boss have followed him. Jack runs into the locker room. Jay is on the ground with a bloody nose while Nick and Brian slam Joseph into the lockers. Joseph shakes his head at Jack, but when Jay stands and moves to punch Joseph, Jack slams into Jay’s back to stop him. Jay falls to his knees, swearing. Brian glances back, distracted, and Joseph knees him in the crotch. Then Joseph punches Nick until the substitute runs into the locker room.
Joseph tries to protect Jack: he silently shakes his head at Jack, telling Jack to stay out of the fight, even though he’s outnumbered and needs help. Jack ignores Joseph, jumping on Jay Perkins—who is about two years older than Jack—to keep him from hitting Joseph. In other words, each boy takes on potential physical danger or harm to protect the other, showing their real friendship.
Themes
Joseph, Jay, Nick, and Brian end up in the principal’s office. Jack ends up in Mr. Canton’s office. When Mr. Canton asks why Jack didn’t go get a teacher, Jack asks whether Mr. Canton would leave a “guy being beat up” to find a teacher. Mr. Canton says that Jack is in trouble because of Joseph: “Trouble follows him like a yellow dog,” Mr. Canton says. Jack replies: “I’ve seen what happens to yellow dogs.” When Mr. Canton says that Joseph is making Jack a worse person, Jack asks again whether Mr. Canton would leave someone being attacked to find a teacher. Mr. Canton sends Jack away and calls Mr. Hurd and Mrs. Hurd.
When Mr. Canton says that “trouble follows [Joseph] like a yellow dog,” he’s employing an idiomatic use of “yellow dog” to mean a bad, dangerous, or disgraceful person. That is, Mr. Canton is yet again displaying his prejudice against Joseph as a foster child who’s been in violent institutional settings like Stone Mountain. Yet when Jack replies, “I’ve seen what happens to yellow dogs,” he is clearly thinking of the yellow dog he saw drown when he was six. Thus the “yellow dog” becomes a symbol of 12-year-old Jack’s desire to save Joseph from prejudice and danger as he was unable to save the yellow dog from drowning. Notably, Jack displays maturity when he asks Mr. Canton whether he would leave a “guy being beat up” to find a teacher: the question suggests that Jack has moral judgment independent from that of his teachers and will take responsibility in dangerous situations if there’s no adult at hand.
Themes
After school, Mr. Hurd and Mrs. Hurd scold Jack, but when Jack asks whether they would leave someone getting attacked to go find a teacher, Mr. Hurd admits that he wouldn’t. Still, he warns Jack not to be reckless. Mrs. Hurd asks whether Jack knows that Joseph “is not your—”. Jack, interrupting her, says he does. That night in their bedroom, Joseph says Jack shouldn’t have interfered but thanks Jack for having his back, something no one has ever done except Madeleine. The boys stand together at the window, and Joseph points out Jupiter.
Whereas Mr. Canton dodges Jack’s question about whether he’d leave someone being beaten to go find a teacher, Mr. Hurd answers it honestly: no, he wouldn’t. Mr. Hurd’s honesty shows his good parenting. He won’t lie to Jack to win an argument or disrespect Jack’s growing independent judgment. When Mrs. Hurd asks whether Jack knows that Joseph is “not your—”, the implied last word is presumably either “brother” or “responsibility.” Yet even if Joseph is neither of those things to Jack, Jack still “has Joseph’s back,” in Joseph’s understanding, because they are friends. This shows that friendship can be a genuine, deep bond flourishing independently of biological or legal family relationships.
Themes
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Joseph, Jay, Nick, and Brian get suspended for the four days before winter break. All four days after school, Mr. D’Ulney, Mrs. Halloway, and Coach Swieteck come to the Hurds’ farm and give Joseph schoolwork so he won’t have to make it up in January. During vacation, when Joseph and Jack are walking back from the library after checking out the second Octavian Nothing novel, Jay and his friends pass them on a snowmobile, and Jay yells threats at Joseph. When they’re gone, Joseph warns Jack to never let those boys “behind” him. Jack promises not to.
The teachers who help Joseph during his suspension demonstrate, yet again, that not all adults are prejudiced against Joseph and that some of them are willing to take on extra responsibilities and work to help him. When Joseph tells Jack never to let Jay and his friends “behind” him, it both reminds readers of Joseph’s traumatic past and shows Joseph’s growing care for Jack.
Themes
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The temperature drops even further. While Jack and Joseph milk the loving cows in the cold barn, Joseph talks about Madeleine: how she made him feel “warm inside,” her ambition to become an engineer bringing wells to places without fresh water, and so on. Jack speculates that the night Joseph told the Hurds his story “unfroze” him.
This passage is working with a metaphorical contrast between Joseph’s experiences of “warm” love—represented by the cows, Madeleine, and the Hurds—with his cold or “frozen” experiences of trauma: his mother’s death, his father’s abuse, his traumatic stay in Stone Mountain, and so on. As Joseph has come to trust and care for the Hurds, they have helped him heal from his trauma: “unfreeze” him, in Jack’s terminology.
Themes
On Christmas Eve, Mr. Hurd, Jack, and Joseph find a fir tree on their property, cut it down, and carry it home. Mrs. Hurd brings out ornaments, including a new gold angel for Joseph to commemorate his first Christmas with the Hurds. Joseph comments that Jupiter would love it. After dinner, Mrs. Hurd prepares the boys to attend First Congregational. When she asks Joseph whether he’s been to a Congregational service before, he says he’s never been to church. Mrs. Hurd starts, “Didn’t your mother—” but stops when Joseph looks at the ground.
When Joseph looks at the ground after Mrs. Hurd asks him about his mother, it again implies that Joseph’s mother died when he was very young and that that death is his earliest trauma. Implicitly, by giving Joseph Christmas gifts and insisting that he come with the family to Christmas Eve services, Mrs. Hurd is welcoming Joseph into the family and taking on a mother’s role for him.
Themes
At First Congregational, Reverend Ballou tells the story of Joseph and Mary, who heard from angels that they were going to have a “special” baby. After the angels visited, Joseph wasn’t scared, and he was able to provide for Mary. Jack notices that Joseph Brook listens rapt to this story. After the service, Joseph asks Reverend Ballou whether the story was true—after all, if angels are real, why don’t they prevent evil? Reverend Ballou suggests that angels aren’t meant to prevent evil but to keep people company in evil times. Joseph replies: “Then where the hell were they?” Reverend Ballou looks as though he might cry.
Reverend Ballou is telling the Christian Biblical story of Joseph and Mary. In the Christian story, Mary’s baby isn’t Joseph’s—she becomes pregnant without having sex, by a miracle, after agreeing to give birth to God’s son Jesus Christ (who is also, mysteriously, God). The novel ignores the Biblical Joseph’s non-paternity to emphasize that Joseph Brook identifies with the Biblical Joseph as a young, overwhelmed father who wants to provide for his pregnant partner. Joseph Brook’s question to Reverend Ballou, “where the hell were they?”, may refer to his feelings of abandonment during any one of his traumas, e.g. his mother’s death, Madeleine’s death, or his implied sexual assault at Stone Mountain.
Themes
The next morning, Jack and Joseph open their presents. Joseph receives a copy of Walden—and an envelope. When Joseph opens the envelope, it contains a paper that reads, “we’ll help.” Jack asks what it means. Mrs. Hurd explains that they’re going to call Mrs. Stroud. Joseph hugs Mrs. Hurd as trustingly as he hugs Rosie the cow. When Mr. Hurd puts a hand on Joseph’s back, Joseph is fine with it.
Joseph has repeatedly turned to Rosie the cow for emotional support due to her unprejudiced animal affection for him. When he hugs Mrs. Hurd as trustingly as he hugs Rosie, it shows that he has come to believe that the Hurds care for him as much as Rosie does. When he doesn’t get scared after Mr. Hurd puts a hand on his back, meanwhile, it shows that he trusts Mr. Hurd enough not to have his usual traumatized reaction to anyone standing behind him.
Themes
