The Adoration of Jenna Fox

The overarching theme of this section is “choice.” Though Jenna is introduced in the novel as a helpless, passive participant in her parents’ dubious moral decisions, she now has the capacity to make her own choices, as well as evaluate the choices of others. After she and Ethan pick up Allys from her volunteer project at the medical center, the conversation turns towards medical research and practices and the FSEB, who regulates and controls every physician, hospital, and research facility. Allys, who blames an overuse of antibiotics for the loss of her limbs, supports the FSEB and the checks and balances they place on individual choices. “‘Just because we can doesn’t mean me should’” (95), she maintains (95). The points system, while it takes away doctors’ and patients’ choices, also creates a level of fairness. Jenna doesn’t yet know the truth about her own medical history, but still sees this approach as “simplistic” (95). Ethan is similarly conflicted--while Allys is able to put her trust in “‘intelligent and qualified people’” (96) to make decisions for her and take away the burden of choice, Ethan’s own life experiences has taught him not to put such faith in others.

Witnessing this argument about individual freedom affects Jenna, who decides to fully explore her house for the first time. “It only just now strikes me as odd that I have been like a houseguest...never feeling free to roam the rest of the house” (100), she says. Her desire for freedom wins out over trusting her parents and results in her finding the locked closet and its key, which will eventually lead to her most important discoveries. Before she can unlock the door, she is interrupted by Ethan’s visit, at which point she must make another choice: stay with him, or return to the locked closet. “I choose Ethan for now” (103), Jenna says, and the implications of her choice are clear. When forced to, she will choose interpersonal relationships and emotional growth over mystery and the potentially gritty truth. Ethan reveals his dark past, but Jenna is undisturbed by what he’s done, acknowledging that “sometimes there is just no choice” (105).

When Jenna does eventually discover the truth of her existence, her parents’ explanation hinges on a similar lack of choice: “‘Any parent in the world would have made the choice we did’” (118), her mother insists, implying that by virtue of their relationship with Jenna, Mother and Father were incapable of making a different choice. Unlike Ethan, Jenna refuses to let her parents off the hook so easily, raging internally about her father’s decision to put her in an “endless vacuum” (128) and asking, “How could you do this to me?” (128). Jenna believes, despite everything that her parents have said, that they did have a choice, and that they made the wrong one.

In the wake of her discovery, Jenna’s use of dictionary definitions to understand her world begins to unravel. She looks up the word “human,” but remains confused. “How many definitions for human can one person find?” she asks. “And how do you know which one is correct?” (134). While the dictionary once gave Jenna a concrete foundation, her discovery has forced her to see the world not in terms of black and white definitions, but in shades of grey.

This section also illuminates Jenna’s relationship with honesty and the idea of the “truth.” While talking to Lily, she finds she can “accept [Lily’s] bluntness easier than lying” (132). She is conflicted by her budding friendship with Dane because while she is disturbed by the “emptiness” (98) in his face, she also appreciates his self-described honest nature and the fact that he was the first to tell her that she walked funny, when no one else would. When Jenna discovers the Bio Gel under her skin, her first question to Mother is: “‘When were you going to tell me!’” (115). She confronts her mother for lying before she asks what is under her skin. In Jenna’s mind, the most significant discovery is that her parents lied, not that they altered her body.