The Adoration of Jenna Fox

In The Adoration of Jenna Fox, eyes are used as pathways to characters’ feelings, fears, and ultimately, their souls. This is coupled with Jenna’s almost supernatural ability to see things in others’ eyes that a normal person couldn’t. While other characters also look to the eyes to make discoveries—Ethan sees Allys’ decision in her eyes and Father sees Jenna’s defiance in hers—Jenna’s ability is unique: “I can see lies as plainly as a deep breath or a shrug” (237), she says. Early on, Jenna uses this ability to understand others’ expressions. “Without words, the lids shape sounds” (24), she tells us, “They speak different things just by faintest of angles” (24). Jenna finds forgiveness in Ethan’s eyes and pain in Lily’s, and something she can’t even define in Mother’s. “They call [eyes] windows to the soul”, Jenna says, something that is especially poignant coming from a girl who is not sure she possesses a soul. 

Color is used to symbolize different things in The Adoration of Jenna Fox. Blue is the most prominent color early on in the novel, with Jenna describing all of her clothing as blue, along with the blue Bio Gel (“blue goo” (94)) under her skin. The cake young Jenna makes her father is blue as well and Mother suggests blue curtains for Jenna’s room. Blue represents Jenna’s life within her parents’ control, and all their hopes and expectations for her.

Red, on the other hand, represents Jenna’s new life—the one she creates for herself, outside of her family. Before the accident, she bought a red skirt with Kara after her friend demanded she change her blue-heavy wardrobe. The red skirt was lost, or purposefully forgotten in the move, and Jenna mourns its loss: “I am a kept animal” (179), she says, “And all I wanted today was one simple thing. A red skirt” (179). Red represents the independence and full life Jenna had prior to her accident, and when she asks her mother for red drapes instead of blue it symbolizes her first step in truly reclaiming her life, outside the protection of her parents.

The color white is used primarily in reference to Dane, who has a “White house. White pajamas. White teeth” (53). White is typically thought of as a color of purity and innocence, whereas Dane embodies just the opposite. The Adoration of Jenna Fox uses white not to convey innocence, but to convey emptiness—the word Jenna uses to describe Dane’s personality multiple times—and the idea that something that is pure and beautiful looking on the outside may be truly frightening on the inside. 

The key to the locked closet in Jenna’s parents’ bedroom is consistently used to represent the truth that is being hidden from Jenna. After finding the key, Jenna hesitates to use it, knowing that it will damage her relationship with her mother. “Something is not right. But I owe [Mother]” (112). She starts to put the key back and leave the door to the truth unlocked, but is spurred on by Kara and Locke’s voices. They need her to know the truth, so they need her to keep the key. When Jenna offhandedly mentions a different locked closet, asking her parents for its key, she sees the terror in their eyes. They know if she uses the real key to unlock their closet, she will know everything. Jenna hides the key under a rug. “I place my hand over the patch of carpeting” (157), she says, “like some truth will filter through” (157).

In the forest by Jenna’s house, she notices eucalyptus growing. In California, where Jenna lives, eucalyptus is an invasive plant brought to the state in the 1850s for use in construction. However, the eucalyptus soon took over the native plants and even fueled forest fires. Jenna describes the plant as “beautiful but unwanted” (215) and wonders, “What have they crowded out that was more beautiful or more important?” (215). In The Adoration of Jenna Fox, the eucalyptus plant, with its sweet smells and danger, is a symbol of Jenna herself, and the potential her new body has to both revolutionize and destroy the natural world.