There is little in Jacob Have I Loved to cause concern among parents and teachers or serious discontent among readers, but the book does explore potentially controversial issues—among them Louise's sexual attraction to Captain Wallace, Grandma Bradshaw's spiteful, self-righteous use of religion, and the limitations placed on Louise by a sexist educational system and by her marriage to an uneducated man.
Louise's attraction to Captain Wallace, which arises out of compassion, is not explicitly sexual, and the competition between Louise and her grandmother for the Captain's affection is sad rather than arousing. Curiously, Louise is most attracted to the Captain's hands; she considers them beautiful and thinks that the work she does makes her own hands ugly.
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