By Julie Sara Porter, Bookworm Reviews
Spoilers Ahead: Room is one of the most acclaimed best sellers of the 20-teens and deservedly so. The inspiration for this psychological drama (not thriller that is important.) are the cases of Jaycee Duggard, a woman who was held captive for 18 years since she was 11 and gave birth to her captor's children and Joseph Fritzel, an Austrian man who held his daughter captive for over 20 years in a secret room attached to his house and fathered seven children with her.
Those accounts are certainly grim and most novels based on them would probably be psychological thrillers. They would tell the story from the victim, their families, and probably focus more on the rescuers on the outside trying to find them. Maybe we would get into the back story of the kidnapper and why he acted as he did. This wouldn't be a bad approach but Emma Donoghue did something unique with her narrative: she told the story exclusively from the point of view from a small child, a boy born in captivity to a kidnap victim.
As Room is told from the point of view of 5-year-old Jack, we are finding out about his world just as he is. He is inside a place called Room with his mother, Ma (called Joy in the 2015 film version.) His only friends are his Wardrobe where he sleeps, his Rug where he sits, and the other things around him.
Jack and Ma spend their days watching the TV which Ma tells him are pictures of people from another planet. (For example Dora and the Backyardigans live on a Cartoon Planet).
Sometimes they play "Phys Ed" which involves creating games based on things they have lying around like cardboard boxes and plastic bags or they stand under the Skylight and scream as loud as they can. They read the same books like Dylan the Digger and Alice in Wonderland (Because of reading the books, Jack's reading skills are well developed) and sing songs from "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" to "Tubthumping. "
The only other person is a sinister character called Old Nick, who visits Ma every night and gives them food, medicine, and other items for Sundaytreat.
These elements make the story less of a thriller and give the book almost the aspect of a dark fairy tale like Bluebeard. Because of Jack's limited experience with the Outside World, it is almost as though he and Ma are trapped in a dungeon by an evil ogre who needs no backstory or explanation. Old Nick is the cruel man who entraps Ma and Jack, because to him that's all he is. To Ma and Jack, Old Nick is nothing more than a monster and all they have are each other.
Jack is naturally confused when his mother tells him that there is a world outside of Room, that she was kidnapped at 19-years-old, and that she has a family outside. His confusion turns to terror when after a fight with Old Nick, Nick cuts off the power and reveals that his home will be foreclosed. So Ma comes up with a daring plan of escape that actually works.
Most books would end with the rescue, reunion with the family, arrest of the kidnapper, and a happy ending. But as the Reader has already observed, Room is not like most novels. Instead Jack and Ma's escape from captivity is in the middle and the two have an equally difficult struggle of adapting to society.
For Jack, who was born in captivity, everything is a new experience for him. He has to get used to everything from riding inside cars to learning about social cues that he never knew like not touching people in certain areas. Even though he is 5 with a developed vocalbulary, Jack is almost like a baby or a blank slate unlearned, curious, and frightened of the world around him. He can't get used to the idea that Room is only one small part of a wider world and it doesn't take long for Jack to want to go back to Room since it is familiar to him.
Ma has just as difficult a time adjusting but in her case, it's getting used to a world that changed around her. She has to adjust to her brother getting married and starting a family and her parents getting divorced and her mother getting remarried during her absence. She also is protective of Jack and confrontational over anyone else helping her because for so long it was just the two of them. Of course there is also the Media Circus that forms after their release. After a disastrous interview, Ma is overwhelmed by her newfound freedom and overdoses.
In their captivity and release, Jack and Ma are compelling characters. First in Room, where they have to rely on each other as friends and co-horts in an awful situation, then after their release when they have to reach out to others in a brave, new, scary, large world. Their release changes them so that even though Jack and Ma love each other as much as ever, they are willing to be a part of the world that they are learning to accept. This is evident when after they return to Room, Jack wonders if it was always that small and Ma tells him, yes, yes it was.
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