Study Guide
Background
Room was written in 2010 by Emma Donoghue. It was shortlisted for many awards, including the Man Booker Prize and the Governor General’s Awards in 2010.
Donoghue stated that she based the book upon the experiences of Elisabeth Fritzl, who was imprisoned by her father, Josef Fritzl, for 24 years. Elisabeth gave birth to seven children in captivity, with one of the youngest being Felix, of whom was the same age as Jack upon their release.
Room was adapted in to a film that was released in 2011, starring Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay.
Summary
Room is told from Jack’s perspective, the five-year-old son of the woman who has been kidnapped and imprisoned for seven years in a room by a man they call “Old Nick”. It details the life that his Mother has tried to build for them, from making toys out of old egg shells, to completing their exercises in the morning to stay fit, Old Nick brings them food, and gives them special items on Sundays, which they can request a week at a time. To Jack, this is all he has ever known, and it all seems completely normal. Yet, Old Nick’s abuse is evident, as rape is heavily implicated, with Jack only hearing the bed creak from his make-shift bed in the cupboard. After an incident where the woman, named only ‘Ma’, screams at Old Nick to stay away from Jack, he punishes them by switching off the electricity. Ma learns from Old Nick that he is jobless and in debt, and she is worried that the bailiffs will visit his house. She believes this will result in her and Jack’s death, as Old Nick would never let them be found. Ma decides it is time for them to escape. She tries to explain to Jack about the outside world. As he has never seen it, it is extremely hard and he initially does not believe her.
Eventually, Jack sees a leaf and a plane out the skylight and begins to believe Ma. Firstly, Ma tries to fake that Jack has a fever, and begs Old Nick to take him to a hospital on the outside. When this doesn’t work, she pretends Jack is dead and wraps him in a rug. Old Nick puts him in his truck to bury him. Jack escapes, and manages to explain to the police where his Ma is. She is rescued also, and they are taken to an institution. They try to avoid the paparazzi, and adjusting to the outside world is extremely difficult for Jack. He meets his grandparents, and uncle, and finds the amount of people he needs to meet overwhelming. After coming back from a day out with his uncle, Paul, he discovers that Ma has overdosed on painkillers. He stays with his grandparents whilst she recovers, in intensive care. Once she recovers, Ma and Jack move in to a flat in an Independent living complex and they attempt a normal life, experiencing new things every day. At the end Jack and Ma revisit Room for Jack to say goodbye.
Themes
Isolation
Isolation is the most obvious theme of Donoghue’s Room, especially as this theme specifically means isolation against Ma’s will. Yet, Donoghue approaches this theme in an unusual manner. Instead of focusing on Ma’s desperate attempts to escape, the novel focuses on her and Jack’s daily, domestic routine. In order to cope with her isolation, Ma creates schedules in a day to pretend that there is some sort of normality in her life. The full sense of tragedy associated with their isolation only becomes apparent when Ma is gone for days at a time. She appears to be mentally ill, and with only Jack for company, is completely devoid of the medical attention she needs. However, perhaps the most terrifying aspect of this theme is that Ma is not always isolated, because she is visited by Old Nick every night, where he sexually assaults her in return for bringing them groceries. Therefore, complete isolation would perhaps have been more desirable.
Freedom
This theme of freedom directly contrasts the overwhelming sense of isolation that inhabits the first half of the book. This freedom is long anticipated by Ma, yet Donoghue does not focus completely on Ma’s happiness when she is finally rescued. Instead, the author presents a very realistic take on freedom that includes an endless amount of practicalities. Neither Ma nor Jack can simply begin their new life away from Old Nick. They are both emotionally scarred, and physically damaged. Ma must undergo intense dental surgery, and Jack must wear all sorts of protective clothing before he can even go outside. A further implication of freedom is that Jack is presented with too much of it, too soon. For a boy who has grown up in the confines of a single room, he cannot process the possibility of having access to an entire world of freedom. Therefore, this theme cannot be seen wholly as a positive one. For it to be celebrated, Ma and Jack must first let go of their habits they had to adopt to survive in Room.
Family
In Room, Jack is all that Ma has, and vice versa. Only once, and by Ma’s Father, is it emphasised that Jack is the product of Old Nick’s rape of Ma. Despite his biological Father, it is only ever the love between Jack and his Ma that is displayed, and family is all they have to remind them that love still exits. Additionally, when Ma beings to reveal to Jack that she has a family too, she recalls specifically playing with her brother Paul in their old hammock. Bonds within a family are also emphasized as important when Ma and Jack escape from Room. Jack must learn to give identities to all people: Paul, Dayna, Bryanna, Steppa and Grandma. Yet ultimately, he still sees these people as strangers, as Doctor Clay and Noreen are. It is only Ma he sees as his true family, a fact reflected at the end where Jack and Ma move back in together. Therefore, Room is a novel about the strength of familial love, and learning to love those again that you left behind seven years ago.
Fear
While in Room, Ma lives in a constant state of fear, as to what Old Nick will unexpectedly do next, and what she knows he will do when he visits that night. Fear is therefore both associated with knowledge, and lack of it. As the novel continues, this sense of fear associated with knowledge is emphasised by the difference between adult and child. Jack does not know when to recognise fear and is only joyful when Old Nick brings him a birthday present. He cannot recognise Ma’s fear in what the sadist will expect in return from her for such a gift. As the novel continues, it becomes apparent that Ma’s body simply shuts down when she cannot cope with an overwhelming sense of fear. It is therefore interesting that later on, fear pushes Ma to take drastic action to escape, instead of stopping her from functioning normally. This theme is therefore more complicated than it originally seems; fear both prevents Ma from attempting to escape again, and yet also helps her to take that desperate leap.
Love
Upon first glance, Room appears more as a thriller horror, rather than a novel that promotes the power of human love. Yet in the darkness of tragedy, there is also light. While acts of love are abused in Old Nick’s attacks of Ma, it is also the only force between Jack and Ma that keeps them sane for so many years. When Ma escapes and is reunited with her family, it is revealed that her Mother never gave up hoping that she was alive. This remains as a perfect example of familial love persevering through seven, long years.
There are also instances of love failing. For example, Ma’s Father cannot accept Jack as family, due to him being the product of rape. Donoghue therefore presents a large spectrum of love from the strongest to the weakest. This perhaps suggests that there is no clear-cut definition of who is good and bad, who can love and who cannot.
Communication
Communication, and how one communicates, becomes an important theme throughout this novel. In growing up in Room with only Ma, Jack has learned how to communicate within this context, and therefore becomes almost unable to communicate properly in the outside world, which has many different social rules which he has not grown up with. The most obvious example is Jack’s interactions with the TV. In Room, he believes he knows what is real, and what is make-believe. When he encounters the outside, he must alter how he communicates with people and objects he originally thought were only pretend. When he escapes, Officer Oh must decipher how Jack sees the world. He does not know the basic definitions of the outside world, such as ‘garden’; all he knows is ‘Room’. This theme of communication is therefore closely linked with language. Jack’s learned language is completely tailored to his and Ma’s existence in Room, and therefore becomes redundant and something completely new to learn when entering the outside world.
Literary Elements
Genre: A psychological novel
Setting and Context
The novel is set circa 2008. It is divided into two parts, as the author describes life of the girl and her son. In the first part, the action takes place in the kidnapper’s Room. It’s, well… it’s a Room. It’s in the backyard of a kidnapper’s house, and it’s where the kidnapper has held Ma for seven years. To her, it’s a prison. To Jack, it’s the entire world. Room is separated from Outside (i.e., the whole rest of the world) by Door, which is made of “shiny magic metal”. It’s locked by a special keypad and only Old Nick, the kidnapper, knows the code.
The second part is about the release of Ma and her son Jack. The action takes place outside the Room in the real world. When Ma’s escape plan works in the second half of the book, she and Jack find themselves in the Outside world. We’re not sure exactly which city they’re in, but they’re definitely in a city filled with tall buildings, many playgrounds, and a large mental healthcare Clinic.
We’re a little more confident in pinning down the time period. Jack knows who Rihanna, Lady Gaga, and Kanye West are, which puts us into at least 2008. And Ma doesn’t know what YouTube or Facebook are until she gets out of Room, so she could very well have been kidnapped in 2001 or 2002. By the time Jack is five, it’s at least in the late 2000s.
Jack lives in a few different rooms in the Outside world. He and Ma stay at The Cumberland Clinic, and Jack gets some space to himself at Grandma’s house. The most important room, though, may be his own bedroom, which belongs to him and to him alone, which he gets when Ma moves into her own apartment at the end of the book, where Jack and Ma can learn to live independently from each other in separate rooms.
Narrator and Point of View
The narrator of this story is a first-person, a five-year-old boy Jack. He narrates his life in the Room together with his Ma. And after the release, he narrates his life in the world and shows his emotions and feelings upon exposure to a new environment.
Tone and Mood
The mood is dramatic, because the girl is abducted from her house. She cannot escape from the Room and live like her friends and parents. It is also heartbreaking to read how she tries to normalise her and Jack’s life in Room.
Protagonist and Antagonist
The main protagonists are Jack and his Ma. The main antagonist is Old Nick.
Major Conflict
The major conflict is between Ma and Old Nick. Old Nick kidnaps Ma and holds her and Jack hostage.
Climax
The climax takes place when Jack escapes from the Room and rescues his Ma from Old Nick.
Foreshadowing
When Ma tells Jack about different and interesting things, which exist outside the Room, she foreshadows for him that the real world is amazing and beautiful.
Allusions
This novel alludes to many famous singers such as Lady Gaga, Kanye West, Rihanna, Eminem, and Hannah Montana, when Ma tells Jack about music.
Imagery and Symbolism
Imagery is used in descriptions of the world, when Jack and his mother escape from the Room. Nature and everything around them is described with vivid details.
The Skylight
Room is a novel that constantly contrasts the difference between freedom and captivity. This important theme is also portrayed in the skylight, the only part of Room that allows Ma and Jack a glimpse in to the outside world. The skylight proves that there is an outside world still there, yet always remains out of reach; it serves as a constant reminder of Ma’s captivity, and the possibilities that are just out of her grasp. The skylight also develops into an important symbol for Jack. When he sees the leaf land on the skylight, it begins to prove to him that trees exist in the outside world too, and not just on the TV. Symbolically, the skylight is also a source of light, and of hope, in a room that is otherwise dark and hopeless.
The Room Itself
Physically, the garden shed that Ma and Jack are held in is simply an 11x11 foot room. Yet, it comes to hold a symbolic significance also. For Ma, Room is a personal hell, and her confinement means her life has been taken away from her. This is almost emphasised by the fact that there is a door that Ma could attempt to leave by, but fear keeps her paralyzed from trying. In contrast to this is how Jack sees Room. As he has grown up there, it is his home. He believes that these four walls are as big as the world will ever be. Therefore, the symbolic connotations for him are not negative, providing an almost confusing paradox between what Room represents for the two. It is perhaps the understanding of why they are being kept there that separates the perspectives of Ma and Jack. It is only after they have been released from Room that is ceases to hold any symbolic significance; it returns to being merely a space, no longer a home or prison.
Jack’s Hair
As Jack grows up, his hair grows past his shoulders, as Ma does not cut it. It should therefore symbolically represent strength, as Samson’s hair did before it was cut off. This is reiterated by how Jack sees himself. Despite being only five, he sees himself as Ma’s protector, and wants to hurt Old Nick when he finds out what he did to her wrist many years ago. Ultimately, Jack is an extremely brave character in escaping as he did. Yet, his long hair only acts as a symbol of strength, and is not the source of it. When he has a haircut with his grandma, he still continues to have an inner strength. This is most evident when Ma attempts to take her own life; and his ability to adapt to the outside world. Jack’s hair perhaps illustrates that some symbols are merely aesthetic, and mean little when true courage is required.
The TV
For many, a television set is seen as a light-hearted form of entertainment. Due to Ma and Jack’s imprisonment, it becomes symbolic of so much more. It becomes the only way of communicating the outside events to them in their captivity. For Ma, she is able to watch how the world changes, so that she does not receive any entire culture shock when she escapes Room. Yet, she also tells Jack that before he was born, she used to watch TV all the time as a way of comfort and company. Thus, the TV evolves from merely a symbol to almost a person within itself. Yet the most important aspect of the TV, as a symbol, is the effect it has on Jack. It develops his imagination to the extent that he cannot distinguish between reality and TV programmes. This highlights especially the social issues that Jack has now developed; in growing up with only imaginary people, it is with them that he feels most safe. As make believe is still such a huge part of Jack’s life, he can only venture outside when Maureen suggests that they are characters themselves in a book. Therefore, the TV is representative of more than just fantasy; it becomes Jack’s world, and creates issues of social interaction when faced with real people.
The Dylan the Digger book
Dylan the Digger is a book that Ma frequently reads to Jack in Room, it being one of the few books that Old Nick has given them. Jack constantly asks for it to be read again and again, suggesting it to be both a comfort and a necessity of routine. Jack then encounters the book again in the outside world, on a day trip with Ma’s brother Ben. When he sees Dylan the Digger in a store, he puts him in his bag and is accused of stealing, as he cannot see the difference between what is and what is not his. This book, while only a minor object, is therefore representative of both a change in routine, and the difference in social rules between the outside and Room, of which Jack cannot understand. In Room, the book was always his, and Ma would read it to him when he wished, suggesting a lack of growth from a toddler mindset. When he cannot have the book in reality, it presents the gap between what Jack knows and how he functions, to what he must learn is acceptable in reality. He is still like a toddler, demanding and expecting to get what he wants.
Personification
Jack personifies a little hope of freedom for his Ma
Useful Quotes
When I was a little kid I thought like a little kid, but now I’m five I know everything
From Chapter Presents
Jack has spent his entire existence in Room. This quote therefore perfectly encapsulates both a child’s mindset when growing up, and the irony of Jack’s unsuspected ignorance of how little he actually knows. Jack is able to self-consciously identify the difference in his character, due to the difference in his age. He no longer sees himself as a ‘little kid’, and this is partially true. Whilst he still has the dependence and mindset of a toddler, it is at this age that Jack actually does begin to learn everything about the outside. Thereby it is ironic that he claims to know ‘everything’ at this moment in time, yet it is ominous of all the knowledge he is yet to struggle processing.
It’s called mind over matter. If we don’t mind, it doesn’t matter
From Chapter Presents
When Ma’s tooth begins to pain her, she tells Jack that it hurts less if she does not think about it. When Jack asks why, she replies with this. Firstly, it presents all the common phrases that Jack has never heard; they are only common because people frequently repeat them on the Outside, and Jack is not aware of this. This quote also relates to a much larger statement. While Jack believes it is related only to her tooth, it describes the entire mindset and approach Ma is forced to take with Old Nick. He physically and mentally abuses her every night when he visits and keeps her in a constant state of fear that her and Jack’s survival is based on his mercy. Therefore, Ma can perhaps only continue to function by applying this philosophy to the endless and tortuous abuse she receives. While it may appear too light-hearted for this subject, Ma is powerless against Old Nick and can only retain control through her mind.
Another rule is, the wide of the walls is the same as the wide of Floor, I count eleven feet going both ways, that means Floor is a square
From Chapter Presents
Shows confinement: And that means that Ma has been inside an 11x11 room for eight years. It’s all Jack knows, and he’s small, so it’s not that strange for him, but Ma’s claustrophobia must be out of control.
“Why am I hided away like the chocolates?” I think [Ma is] sitting on Bed. She talks quiet so I can hardly hear. “I just don’t want him looking at you. Even when you were a baby, I always wrapped you up in Blanket before he came in”
From Chapter Presents
Jack isn’t just confined in Room, he’s sometimes confined in a Wardrobe within Room. That’s double confinement. Just as parents want to protect their kids from things in the outside world, Ma has to find a way to protect Jack even though their “world” is only 121 square feet.
After nap we do Scream every day but not Saturdays or Sundays. We clear our throats and climb up on Table to be nearer Skylight, holding hands not to fall
From Chapter Presents
Jack thinks this is just another activity he and Ma do, like Catch or Track. He doesn’t quite understand why they sit silently afterwards. What they’re doing is screaming for help. Ma hopes someone will hear them and let them out of Room.
Stories are a different kind of true
From Chapter Unlying
When Ma and Jack are still in Room, Ma attempts to introduce Jack’s imagination to as many different stimulants as possible. Therefore, when he asks questions about the world that she cannot answer, she sometimes lies to him, protecting him from the truth that they are prisoners. When she is then forced to tell Jack the truth, he does not understand the difference between truth, lying, and the fiction of books. Ma therefore has to invent an explanation that will not ruin all she has tried to teach Jack about the world, from an 11x11 foot room. For stories to be a ‘different kind of truth’ suggests there is not one simple, eternal truth; truth comes in many different forms. Ma suggests the truth that stories exhibit perhaps is not based upon whether they are fiction or non-fiction, but the values they promote. The stories that they read contain versions of real people, so are almost half-truths, a way of introducing Jack to the truth about the Outside without giving him too much information at once.
Scared is what you’re feeling. Brave is what you’re doing
From Chapter Dying
This quote is from the preparations Ma is making for Jack’s escape from Room. It is important in distinguishing the difference between feeling, and actions. As a child, Jack does as he feels. It is here that for the first time, he must attempt to feel one emotion, and act as another. This is important, as it helps Jack to feel like a brave character in one of his books, and ultimately he rescues them both from Room. This also shows how Ma manages to exist. She constantly lives out of fear for Old Nick, yet has to be brave and polite to him in order to protect Jack. Therefore, this difference between emotion and action is imperative for Ma to survive, and now she must teach Jack to survive this way also.
Maybe I’m a human, but I’m a me-and-Ma as well
From Chapter After
This quote is pivotal to understanding both Jack’s dependence on his Ma, and his understanding of the Outside. It especially highlights how his time in Room has affected how he interacts with people, including his Ma. Donoghue aligns being ‘human’, a biological state, with the state of being ‘a me-and-Ma’. It is therefore obvious that Jack sees his very being as constantly in conjunction with Ma. It is only this fact that he is certain of, while he is only ‘maybe’ sure that he is a human. Upon encountering the Outside, Jack struggles to interact with other people, because they aren’t his Ma. He struggles to see her with anyone else, simply because he believes that she belongs with him. When she attempts to kill herself, Jack actually believes that all she needs is him, as if he is a type of medicine. Therefore, this simple quote illustrates the difficulty that Jack will experience once in the Outside, after Room, simply from being kept from any other form of human contact.
Me and Ma have a deal, we’re going to try everything one time so we know what we like
From Chapter Living
This quote is from the last section of the novel, entitled ‘Living’, a chapter that is preceded by both ‘Dying’ and ‘After’. This suggests a rebirth in to the world, as different people who are no longer controlled by Old Nick. It also presents the progress that Jack has made since leaving Room. The reader has witnessed his struggles to even try different breakfast foods, and it is evident that living in the Outside is a difficult task for him. Therefore, his willingness to try ‘everything’ means he is open to an entire to an entire world of possibility. For five years, Jack’s entire world was in an 11x11 foot space. Now, he can cope with the new things he encounters every day, methodically writing them down on a list to cope with the pressure of so many new ideas.
I look back one more time. It’s like a crater, a hole where something happened. Then we go out the door
From Chapter Living
Room is partially a narrative of return. Whilst Ma wishes to never return to Room, Jack urges them to visit, as it reminds him of the contained safety of his childhood. When they visit, it is no longer a prison, as they have the choice to leave. In this poignant quote, Room doesn’t even exist as a structure anymore, but a ‘crater’. This suggests that is has become a non-entity, a place where ‘something happened’; the terror of the past seven years can only become ‘something’ as they no longer have to live it. Additionally, this last action of the novel seems insignificant, yet it presents the one action that Ma always wished to do. In being able to leave Room of their free will, without force and without an escape plan, it highlights their final bid to freedom. In returning to Room, both Jack and Ma commit its memories completely to rest, and they are finally able to move forward