Orbiting Jupiter

“It was almost dawn when we went outside, Joseph and me. The peaks to the west were lit up and spilling some of the light down their sides and onto our fields, all harvested and turned and ready for the long winter. You could smell the cold air and the wood smoke. The pond had broken panes of ice on the edges, enough to annoy the geese…”

Orbiting Jupiter is set in winter, and the imagery of the season often tracks the journey of its characters. Here, Jack establishes the setting. Winter is a treacherous time in the context of the novel, and this paragraph highlights its beauty and its danger as the broken ice foreshadows tragedy.

“I looked behind me. He’d dropped his backpack and picked up a stone from the side of the road. He turned and lobbed it toward the bell tower of old First Congregational. I’d never heard that bell ring before.”

Joseph and Jack build several rituals together. The first is their daily walks to school, during which they often throw stones and snowballs at the church bell. Jack comes from a Christian family, and his parents would likely frown upon this activity, however throwing the stone symbolically opens Jack’s eyes to a larger world. The ringing of the bell draws attention to the fact that Joseph will alter the way Jack experiences the world. 

“Not like they were afraid of him, exactly—they didn’t hear what he said in his sleep at night, how he’d holler, ‘Let go, you…’ and then words I didn’t even know. Or how he’d start to cry and then he’d only say a name, and he’d say it like it was someone he’d do anything, anything to find. Maybe if the teachers had heard Joseph late at night, they might have been a little afraid of him.”

Jack shows empathy toward Joseph by expressing his dislike of how many of the teachers at Eastham Middle treat Joseph; however, Jack is still unsure if he should trust Joseph. Jack sees that Joseph’s trauma is deep and that it has an impact on Jack’s safety. In this moment, Joseph’s history with Maddie and the deeper pain of his past are introduced in a mysterious way.

“I stopped in the yard and looked at the sky and said to my father, ‘Do you know which one is Jupiter?’

‘Jupiter?’ he said. He looked at the stars. ‘Jack, I have no idea.’ He pointed. ‘Maybe that big one?’

‘Over there,’ said Joseph. He was pointing up above the mountains.

‘How do you know?’ said my father.

‘I always know where Jupiter is,’ he said.”

The planet Jupiter represents Joseph’s love of his daughter and longing to see her. Despite the trauma he endured at Stone Mountain, Joseph has not lost sight of the planet nor has he stopped thinking about his daughter. Spotting Jupiter in the night sky becomes a ritual for Joseph.

“He always milked her first now. Morning and afternoon. Sometimes I wondered if he was still so slow at it just because she loved him and told him so and Joseph didn’t want to hurry any of that up.” 

Joseph participates in the Hurds’ chores, and milking the cows is one of the most important of these daily rituals. The cows help Joseph cope with his discomfort at physical touch; as well, he becomes emotionally attached to one of the cows, Rosie. Jack is convinced that Joseph wants to receive love, even if he makes it difficult for others to give him love.

“The bus rolled off through the high snow, and when it was gone, everything around us was only white. The ground, the trees, the clapboard of the church, the sky. Even the Alliance was frozen white, and maybe that’s why Joseph dropped his backpack on the road, clambered into the high snow, and headed down to the river. I followed him.”

The state of winter highlights the emptiness of Joseph’s world. He feels completely alone against the backdrop of snow and ice, which erase color from the physical world. Joseph continues to search for love in these conditions; Jack later learns that Maddie loved skating, which draws Joseph to the river.

“The yellow dog was out farther onto the ice than Joseph, but not much, and it had fallen through and its eyes were huge and it was grabbing on with its front paws […] Once the dog almost got out, but the ice broke under it again and it was scratching like anything—until suddenly it stopped, put its head down on the ice, slid into the dark water, and was gone.”

The drowning of the yellow dog haunts Jack. The feeling of helplessness has traumatized him, so when Joseph needs help, Jack is unwilling to relive the painful moment and he chooses to act and save Joseph. This incident marks a significant turning point in their relationship and in Jack’s role as an active character. The story also foreshadows Joseph’s death in the Alliance at the novel’s climax.

“Maybe it was because of the freezing water, but for the first time, I could see his scar clearly. The white line dragged down from under his right arm, then jagged along his whole side and into his sweatpants. I wondered if it went all the way down his leg.”

Joseph’s scar represents his trauma. Jack is unable to understand Joseph’s pain until he chooses to save Joseph from the river. He becomes an ally to Joseph, and only then can he start to understand who Joseph is. This is the first time Joseph is willing to expose himself—physically and emotionally—to Jack.

“The snow stopped, but the temperature really dropped the next few days, so that getting up to zero seemed kind of hopeless. During the day, the air glistened with hovering ice. At night, the stars were razor sharp. At dawn, the sunlight went straight up in a hazy column. And sunset closed the day with a quick wink. No kidding. One minute it was bright daylight, and then you turned your back and it was full dark, like it was trying to catch you.”

Here is more imagery of winter as a treacherous season. Though the sharpness of the stars is beautiful and the clear night provides a better view of Jupiter, the winter night arrives quickly and without warning. The use of the word “hopeless” emphasizes Joseph’s state at this point in the novel. He remains closed off from others, and his attitude changes quickly from warm to cold.

“Around and around, even after I was off the ice, warming my hands. And now his hands were at his sides, and around and around, and now his eyes were closed, and around and around, and we watched Joseph lean and skate, lean and skate.”

Jack sees Joseph in a new light for the first time. He is neither angry nor introverted; instead, he is graceful and wistful. The moment provides Joseph time alone to relive his time with Maddie. He is grateful for the peace, and he bonds with the Hurds by telling him the story of his past.

“He loved her. He had never known love before. He had never known how much it could fill him. He had never known anything, he thought.”

Jack never questions or judges the depth of Joseph’s love for Maddie. The story moves Jack, who becomes Joseph’s closest ally. Despite the reluctance of others to sympathize with Joseph, Jack realizes that Joseph is capable of deep, true love. The truth of Joseph’s love changes Jack’s perceptions The Maine Department of Health and Human Services of him.

“Joseph watched her until the sky was dark and Jupiter was up and Joseph pointed to it—‘It’s my favorite planet,’ he said. And she held his arm and looked at Jupiter and she said, ‘Mine too—now.’”

This moment explains the link between Joseph, Maddie, and the planet Jupiter, for whom their daughter is named. Joseph is not present at Jupiter’s birth, and Maddie has chosen the name on her own. This choice of name suggests that Maddie did not want Jupiter to be separated from her father. The passage also shows that Joseph has been looking at the planet before he arrived at the Hurd farm. Later, when Jack joins Joseph in this ritual, he takes Maddie’s place as Joseph’s ally.

“The baby was beautiful. Beautiful beyond beautiful. She was holding her perfect hands and her perfect fingers and her perfect fingernails up over her head, and her tiny mouth was wide with a yawn, and her eyes were open and she was looking at him—right at him—and she was warm in a light green blanket and a light green cap and she glowed with light like the brightest planet in the darkest sky.”

This passage contains the symbolic connection between Jupiter, Joseph’s daughter, and Jupiter, the planet. Joseph uses the planet as a substitute for his daughter’s beauty, which he witnessed only once. His memory of her—which he rekindles nightly—keeps his goal of finding her at the forefront of his mind.

“That was how Joseph heard for the first time that he would never see Madeleine again, never touch her again, never talk to her again, never walk through the woods with her again.”

In addition to the trauma of physical abuse, the trauma of grief plagues Joseph. Maddie fulfilled many roles in his life, and her loss heightens the loss of his mother; both deaths leave Joseph alone in the world.

“He stopped in the boys’ bathroom. He didn’t know what was coming over him, but it was huge and terrible and strong. It was inside him and outside him, and it was already starting to scream, and it was getting louder and his head was getting louder and his brain was getting louder and he threw water in his face but he couldn’t it he couldn’t stop it he couldn’t stop it he couldn’t stop it.”

This passage conveys the mental anguish Joseph suffers when he learns of Maddie’s death. His grief is all-consuming as evidenced by the repetition of a single phrase uninterrupted by punctuation. The deliberately unconventional syntax represents Joseph’s loss of control. 

“That night, after skating on the pond under the silver moon and Jupiter, Joseph talked more than he had ever talked before altogether. It was like he had finally figured out who he wanted to tell, and once he started, he couldn’t stop until he was done.”

Skating with the Hurds is a pivotal moment for Joseph. The Hurds give him time to separate from everyone else and to think about his current situation. By giving him space, they earn his trust. Because Joseph has not felt trust since Maddie’s death, his emotions pour from him uninterrupted in the first moment of vulnerability for Joseph in Orbiting Jupiter.

“And, his right arm now free, Joseph smashed his own fist into Nick Porter’s face. Again, and again, and again. He was crying. Like at night. He stopped only when the stupid herd of eighth graders scattered and Coach Substitute ran in to find out what all the screeching was about.” 

Joseph momentarily regresses in his fight with the other eight-grade boys. The repetition of the phrase “again, and again, and again” echoes the repetition in the sentence describing what happened when Joseph learns that Maddie is dead. This moment depicts another loss of control, and Jack portrays the desperation of the moment by comparing it to Joseph’s outbursts at night. 

“‘No one’s ever had my back before. Except Maddie. Thanks.’ I got up and stood next to him in the dark. He pointed to Jupiter, lit up, brighter than anything else in the sky. The air was so cold, it was chiming like a struck tuning fork. I was shivering and my feet were freezing. But I guess I was about as happy as I’d ever been.”

Joseph’s fight with Jay and the other boys could have set him back in his journey, but Jack’s presence makes this fight different from Joseph’s attack on the Stone Mountain teacher. Joseph regains control of himself when he realizes that he is not fighting alone. By thanking Jack, Joseph is inviting him to join in his nightly ritual—one he shared previously only with Maddie. Jack remarks on the coldness of the ritual, illustrating a deeper understanding of Joseph’s discomfort and trauma.

“And when he milked, Joseph talked about Madeleine. And when we lifted weights, Joseph talked about Madeleine. And when we carried bales of hay to Quintus Sertorius, Joseph talked about Madeleine. At supper, he talked about Madeleine. At night, in the dark before sleep, he talked about Madeleine.”

Joseph proceeds through a turning point when he trusts in Jack and speaks to him about Maddie. Jack is his first ally since Maddie’s death, and Joseph finds an outlet for the pain of his memories. By speaking about his time with Maddie, Joseph experiences happiness along with grief. Jack’s friendship and willingness to listen offer a catharsis for Joseph.

“‘Maybe angels aren’t always meant to stop bad things.’

‘So what good are they?’

‘To be with us when bad things happen.’

Joseph looked at him.

‘Then where the hell were they?’ he said.

I thought Reverend Ballou was going to start bawling.”

Joseph’s first church service affects him greatly. He sees himself in the Biblical story of Mary and Joseph, but he notices that angels aided the young parents while he was left alone. When Joseph is upset by this detail, he questions Reverend Ballou about the lack of support in his own life. The reverend is unable to respond to Joseph’s skepticism, but the questions expose the depth of Joseph’s pain.

“Joseph didn’t play anymore. We didn’t talk about his father coming, but it was like that feeling you have in dreams, when something is on its way and there’s nothing you can do about it except to hope you wake up before it comes.”

Mr. Brook’s visitation rights set Joseph back in his journey. By this point in the novel, he has accepted his new family and their rituals. The return of his past scares him, and he regresses to a state that reminds Jack of Joseph upon his arrival on the Hurd farm. Jack feels the dread, as well, using language Jack that acknowledges the inevitability of death.

“…for a while, in the dark, I wrapped my arms around myself and stood by the desk and looked out the window for Jupiter. In the storm, I couldn’t see a thing. Joseph wouldn’t be able to either. And I wondered if Joseph knew that what he wanted, he couldn’t have.”

After Joseph runs away from the Hurd farm, Jack continues his nightly ritual. During the snowstorm, however, he cannot find the planet Jupiter, and he knows that Joseph is also lost; the awareness of these disappearances interrupts the ritual for Jack.

“What Joseph did want to hear, though, was anything about Jupiter—and the librarian kept her promise: she wrote to Joseph every week. All through the rest of January and into February, the letters came—mostly on Mondays—and sometimes Joseph would read a little bit to us, or show the new picture, but mostly he kept them to himself, which my father said was all right too.”

While Joseph does not fully achieve his goal, which is to meet Jupiter, letters from Jupiter’s foster mother bring Joseph and Jupiter closer together. He no longer relies on his memory of the single photo of his daughter because he receives a new one from the librarian on a weekly basis. Jupiter is now a consistent part of his life.