Close Reading 11/13

"Nurse Angela, with her love of cats and orphans, once remarked of Homer Wells that the boy must adore the name she gave him because he fought so hard not to lose it" (Irving 5).

The Cider House Rules begins with the discussion of the orphanage and how the children are named by the nurses on things that the nurses like. Many of the children end up adopted and lose the name that the nurse gave them in the first place. The nurses never tell the adoptive parents of the names and they allow for the parents to pick out the name they want for their son. But, this one child, the one that is introduced in this quote, never is able to get adopted. He is never able to survive in the foster homes that he goes to, and thus he is forced to keep the name in which he is given, Homer Wells.

Nurse Angela comments on how Homer does not really want to lose his name, but most likely, it has more to do with Homer's personality than his like of his name. In the homes that Homer, most likely goes to, he is not able to fit in and he either is not well liked or does not like whom he is with. He tries to get back to the orphanage, a place that he knows he belongs. Without being introduced to Homer much beyond his failures at foster homes and his permanent home of the orphanage, it is hard to tell what sort of person Homer is. It is hard to see if Homer decided he likes the orphanage better or if he just did not find the right home for him, the right group of people to call his family, or maybe he feels that the right family, is at the orphanage all along.

The fact that the nurses and doctor allow Homer to keep coming back to the orphanage shows how they are willing to allow the boy to live with them. They are allowing him to grow up in the orphanage and be raised there instead of continuously forcing him to go to foster homes and attempt to be adopted. The doctor and the nurses could very well have found some other place for Homer, but they continue to allow him to stay, showing how they care about the orphans and are not just there to force them into adoption.

Nurse Angela also comments on how she loves orphans. She must have a heart for helping those who do not have a forever family, and she wants to be part of helping them to find a home to call their own, surrounded by people who love them. Obviously, Angela is a kindhearted person who likes to joke about how she was the one who named Homer, one of the only orphans to ever keep his name. There is foreshadowing to the fact that Angela may form a special bond with Homer, most likely a motherly bond, since she is the one who names him. She probably feels like he could be her own son and she may teach him lessons as it is obvious that the doctor will.