Previous
Chapter 7
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Atmosphere, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Love, Relationships, and Meaning
Courage and Identity
Sexism and Misogyny
Heteronormativity and Family
Summary
Analysis
In July of 1981, a year after Joan’s training program began, she and the other astronaut candidates, along with their families, go on a camping trip. Joan brings Frances with her. On the trip, while they’re setting up their tents, one of the other candidates, Marty, makes a misogynistic joke. Lydia laughs, which infuriates Joan. Joan then approaches Lydia and asks her why she laughs at sexist and misogynistic jokes.
This passage again points to the culture of misogyny and sexism that is endemic at NASA and, the novel implies, in U.S. culture in general in the 1980s. Instead of stewing quietly, Joan directly confronts Lydia, pointing to the growth that Joan has experienced as a character thus far as she gradually changes from someone who stays silent when she notices something wrong to someone who directly challenges what she perceives as complicity in injustice.
Active
Themes
Lydia explains that NASA is predominantly made up of and run by White men. In order to get ahead, Lydia argues, women have to appeal to those men, even if they disagree with what those men say or how they act. Joan says she still doesn’t agree with Lydia’s methods but that she understands that they both recognize the problem but disagree about what the solution should be. Joan adds that she’s not really angry at Lydia. Really, she’s angry at the men who make those kinds of jokes.
This passage points to the novel’s questions about how to go about challenging and undermining unjust patriarchal structures that rely on sexism and misogyny to stay in place. Lydia seems to advocate for a methodology that entails infiltrating those systems and dismantling them from within, while Joan seems to advocate for challenging those structures directly. Joan doesn’t end up changing her opinion, and neither does Lydia, but, as Joan says, by the end of the conversation, she believes that she and Lydia are both working toward the same goal but have different approaches to achieving that goal.
Active
Themes
Later, as they’re sitting around a campfire, Griff asks to speak to Joan. The two go off together, and Griff says that he wants to put what happened in New Orleans behind them. He then adds that if Joan does have feelings for someone, feelings that, he says, NASA may not condone, he wants Joan to know that he has her back no matter what. Joan thanks him but says that she has no idea what he’s talking about. She then goes back to her tent. She can’t sleep, though, and she goes outside. When she goes outside, she sees Vanessa on the dock and approaches her. Vanessa hears Joan and turns to face her and then says, “The whole sky makes sense to me now […] because of you.” Joan becomes nervous about how what Vanessa says makes her feel.
Active
Themes
