The Cider House Rules Literary Elements

Coming-of-age, drama

Alternating between the St Cloud’s Orphanage and the Ocean’s View apple orchard/Heart’s Haven, following Homer from his birth in the early 20th century to his middle-aged employment at the orphanage.

Third-person omniscient narrator.

Serious, melancholy, matter-of-fact, objective

While it is clear that Homer is the main protagonist, the book does not have a main antagonist. The book does briefly feature the minor antagonists of Dr Gingrich and Mrs Goodhall, but they are only featured briefly. One could argue that Homer and Dr Larch are each other’s antagonists due to their disagreement of ideologies, but in the end this conflict is solved.

Again, the major conflict is the disagreement between Dr Larch and Homer, as Homer doesn’t want to follow Larch down his career path, but Larch wants him to. Homer’s conflict about who he really is and what he wants to do with his life follows him throughout the book, misleading him to waste his time at Ocean’s View orchards, before he finally realizes that Larch was right all along.

The climax of the novel is when Homer performs his first abortion on Mr Rose’s daughter, as the fetus was conceived from Mr Rose raping his own daughter. He becomes a hero in her eyes; while his position at the orchard is not disrespected, it is the first time that he has been revered in such a way. This is one of the firsts steps in his realization that he belongs at the orphanage.

Homer’s realization of his true career at the orphanage is foreshadowed by Dr Larch’s plans for him. Larch prepares Homer for the job by setting up a fake identity for him, giving him a doctor’s bag, and in his younger years, teaching him how to perform abortions and births.

Page 497, ‘Now do you see, Homer? Larch asked himself. Through the speculum, he felt her heat against his eye’. This quote occurs when Dr Larch is performing an abortion on a woman with a severe infection, during his disagreement with Homer about abortions. His simple ‘now do you see’ is an understatement, as he is literally dealing with life and death yet is treating the ideological issue with Homer as a mere argument.

There are many allusions to coming-of-age novels such as Jane Eyre and Oliver Twist throughout the novel, as well as some direct quotes too. In general, the novel follows a similar format to these novels, and in fact the characters of Jane Eyre and Oliver Twist could even be compared to the characters of Melony and Homer.

The imagery around Wally and Candy when they first arrive at the orphanage is that they are beautiful, almost unearthly. This makes the reader feel like they are different from the other characters; that they are better than them. Such description is exhibited in quotes such as the one on page 178: ‘The man’s blond hair had contrasted so perfectly with the smooth, tanned back of his neck that it had given her a shiver. And how could the back of the girl’s head be so perfect ‒ the bounce and swing of her hair so accurate?’

One of the main issues in The Cider House Rules is the ethical paradox of abortions. Dr Larch frequently discusses that despite Homer’s disagreement with abortions, it is not his choice to perform them or not. Larch believes that because women have no other choice, then people who are able to give abortions also have no choice to refuse them. Homer finally decides his position on the paradox when he performs Rose Rose’s abortion, realizing that now he has performed an abortion, he cannot refuse to perform one on anyone else.

Page 394, ‘I have not really been adopted, thought Homer Wells. I am not really betraying Mrs. Worthington; she never said she was my mother.’ This quote uses parallel structure with the repetitive sentences that begin with ‘I’, which makes Homer’s thoughts almost seem like a mantra, like he is trying to prove them even to himself.

There are no notable examples of metonymy or synecdoche in the text.

Page 543: ‘Homer Wells, adjusting the speculum until he had a perfect view of the cervix, introduced the first dilator until the os opened like an eye looking back at him.’ This quote, which is taken from the scene where Homer is performing an abortion on Rose Rose, personifies the opening of the cervix. This description of the vagina makes the whole process seem more personal and intense; it makes the vagina seem as if it is alive.