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.
I agree that Jack being the narrator is interesting to observe. I like how Donoghue gives the reader an experience of what it is like to have such a small worldview. It's disturbing, but it's very interesting. I would, however, be interested in getting into Ma's head and understand what she's thinking. It's very obvious that she suppresses her emotions in order to let Jack have a relatively childhood. I thought how odd it must have been for Ma to talk about her brother, Paul, and her parents for the first time in seven years, and I think it'd be interesting to understand what Ma's going through as well.
ReplyDeleteI think that Jack's narration actually makes it more apparent that Ma loves him. Even though we get what Scream is, Jack doesn't. Ma is protecting him from knowing what he is missing out on. I think that Ma's love is more powerful from Jack's perspective. We also get to see Jack's love for Ma well. Jack really cares for her and his narration really proves that.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that Jack's voice makes it stronger. One of the things that struck me is how Ma's achievements in raising Jack to become the intelligent, relatively well-adjusted (given the circumstances) child were constantly apparent in this novel. Jack's narration made all of this even more impressive and vivid because you could see how completely she's succeeded in making him feel safe and even loved in this impossible situation.
ReplyDeleteI also think that Jack's narration is fundamental to the book's power. Also, as the plot moves beyond their confinement in Room, Jack's voice is essential to understanding why he's so overwhelmed by the outside world. He's never been outside and still can't comprehend the ways in which everything is changing, but without seeing the world through his eyes we would have more trouble understanding that.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Jack's voice is very important to reading this story. Having such an innocent 5-year-old voice narrating such a dark story really gives it weight. Jack makes it very easy to quickly attach to the characters in the story and make us care about him. It also gives us those chilling moments that you mentioned as we slowly realize what is going on in the story.
ReplyDeleteI agree a lot with what people are saying here in the comments. I don't think the book would be the same if it were narrated by anyone else. His innocence and not picking up on the bad things that we can pick up on makes everything feel darker.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Jack's narration makes the book stronger. As we learn everything from Jack's point of view, we see how much his unique situation has had on him. I would argue that it even better represents the serious topics that you mentioned because it shows how much him life has been affected by it. It would not make sense to write about this horrible experience and ignore the implications on a child who was born into it.
ReplyDeleteI like that you mentioned how difficult it will be for Jack to adjust to the real world. We get a glimpse of this at the end of the chapter Dying, when Jack tells Ma that he is done seeing the world and all he wants is to go back into room. I also agree with you that by allowing a kid to narrated the horrifying situation that both him and Ma are in, the reader gets a better glimpse of the truth especially since writing from Ma's perspective would be unimaginably impossible.
ReplyDeleteWhen we talk about really dark topics in real life we try to avoid descriptions and try to be as vague as possible but still convey what we are trying to talk about. Jack on the other hand narrates completely oppositely. He describes exactly what he is thinking and seeing, while he doesn't understand what it means, it is obvious the the reader what he is talking about. These descriptions make the book very powerful, and provide a unique perspective on how we view our conversations as a whole.
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