The Problems Jack and Ma Will Face

Now that we've finished Room, I can say that Emma Donoghue has left us with the impression that Jack and Ma are in a hopeful, positive place. In the last scene of the book, Jack and Ma revisit Room and Jack realizes how small and insignificant it actually is in the larger scheme of things. After seeing the world and experiencing new things, Jack no longer clings on to Room. The book ends with the sentence: "It's like a crater, a hole where something happened. Then we go out the door." With that last sentence, Donoghue suggests that Jack and Ma have moved on from Room and are now looking towards the future.

However, like we talked about in class, Jack and Ma will face many difficulties and challenges in getting assimilated. For both of them, I foresee problems with the media for a while. The media loves sob stories, daring rescues, and strange situations because it attracts attention from the public and therefore, money. Therefore, I think Ma and Jack will struggle with the presence of the media. However, Jack is already becoming more assimilated (more of a normal boy, I guess) so I predict that the media will eventually lose interest and move on.

For Ma, I think the big struggle will be coming to terms with the fact that she lost seven years to Old Nick. They were also very important years--college years--where people tend to find themselves and what they want to do. Ma was snatched away pretty early in her college career and so I can imagine how bewildering it is for her to be back in the world but with Jack and seven years gone. All her friends have moved on and are probably married or have jobs. A big thing that Ma was worried about was finding her place in the world again. In Room, Ma was solely concerned with being Jack's mother. But outside of Room, she is a daughter, sister, and aunt.

There is also the problem that she and Jack have been confined together for such a long time. She may suffer from PTSD from her traumatic experience. She may also struggle with talking with new people her age. In the last few chapters of the book, Ma told Dr. Clay that she used to crave company in Room but now she doesn't want it. Ma will have to accept the fact that Room drastically changed her from the girl she was before she was abducted.

I think Jack will have an easier time to assimilate into society because he is still a five-year-old. He's at a malleable stage of his life and by the end of the book, has more or else become a normal child. Jack may still have issues socializing with other kids--the incident with Walker showed that he still doesn't understand boundaries--but I think he'll quickly learn.

Ultimately, the horrible and harrowing experience that Ma and Jack went through made them stronger. Jack and Ma will definitely face psychological obstacles in the near future but I see hope that they'll find their way.

A Story Made Stronger by a Child's Voice

While there have been many books written from a rare narrator's point of view (e.g. The Book Thief--it is narrated by an entity called Death), I find Room especially strange as we are in the mind of a five-year-old who has a very skewed perspective of reality. As we view the world (Room) through Jack's eyes, we notice things that make the book more poignant and powerful.

Like we talked about in class, Jack, our narrator, is an intelligent child who does not truly understand the world due to his different circumstances. As a five-year old boy, Jack doesn't understand that Ma and him are trapped in the room by Old Nick. He's never known a reality besides Room. He wakes up everyday super happy because he gets to spend time with Room and all its objects (Meltedly Spoon, Rug, Balloon, etc.) and Ma. For him, that is life and it's great.

Due to his innocence and ignorance of the real world, the situation that he and Ma are in becomes much more emotional to the reader. Since he only knows Room, he names all of the objects in there proper nouns. Therefore, we see that Jack only thinks that there are one of those objects in the world and that each one is unique. Through this, Donoghue shows how important Room is to Jack, therefore implying how difficult it will be for him to adjust to the world outside. How will Jack react when he learns that reality is so much bigger than he thought? How will he feel knowing that him and Ma are not the only ones? Perhaps the real struggle for Jack will not be escaping Room but adjusting to life outside of it.

Other events that are made more powerful by Jack's narration is when Ma and Jack play games like Scream. While Jack thinks it's just games that he and Ma play, the reader knows better--they are calling for help. When I realized that Ma is disguising all these ways of alerting attention as games to Jack, it was chilling. It shows what a good and smart mother she is and emphasizes the contrast between Jack's happy voice and the desperate situation they are both in.

I've heard criticisms about this book--namely that such a horrible event in which a woman is kidnapped, raped, and imprisoned for years should not be narrated by a child. People say that Jack's voice doesn't represent it well. I disagree. I think Jack's narration makes this book stronger. Through Jack's eyes, the reader gets a glimpse of what it really means to know an eleven-by-eleven foot space as your own reality and the fierce love Ma has for Jack even in such a dark, terrifying background.

A Lesson Before Dying: Jefferson's Growth

One of the many things that intrigued me in the novel A Lesson Before Dying was Jefferson's change from an angry (and rightfully so) boy to a man who accepts his fate.

In the very beginning of the novel, when the defense attorney calls him a "hog" in an attempt to exonerate him, Jefferson seems to internalize this. Whenever Miss Emma and Grant visits him throughout the novel, he regularly calls himself a "hog" and the visitors "you-mans". The spelling of the word "humans" here emphasizes how different Jefferson feels from the rest, how inhuman he feels. Jefferson constantly acts like a hog in front of Miss Emma and Grant and it seems like much of it is on purpose. For example, during one visit, he looks right at Grant, as if challenging him to say something. Therefore, in the beginning, Jefferson rejects all of Grant's and Miss Emma's attempts to reach him.

However, I think Jefferson really changes after the execution date is set. In the first visit with Grant after they learn when Jefferson will be sent to the chair, Jefferson is calm and child-like. He asks Grant for a "whole gallona ice cream" to be eaten "with a pot spoon". He isn't happy but he is momentarily content when he thinks of all the food he wants. I think it is here that Jefferson gets past the angry/bitter stage and is slowly beginning to accept his fate.

In the next few meetings between Grant and Jefferson, Jefferson seems calmer and more willing to listen. And when Grant gives him the whole spiel on what a hero's all about and why Jefferson is that hero, he seems to understand on some level. Grant notes "he may not have understood, but something was touched, something deep down in him..." Here, we see the image of the mentor teaching the apprentice yet learning from his student as well.

However, it isn't until the last visit with Grant that Jefferson becomes truly a person who accepts his fate. I think of this as the point where the apprentice supersedes the mentor. In this visit, Jefferson calls Grant out on how Grant never saw him as a man. Jefferson is described as standing "big and tall, and not stooped as he had been in chains". He questions Grant about death, God, and duties to the community. I think it's interesting how Grant fails to respond to him many times. At one point, Jefferson even comforts Grant by saying that he is alright. All of this shows huge personal growth in Jefferson and a certain wisdom that wasn't there before. Jefferson's change convinces me that on the day of his execution, he will go like man, not an animal.