Jack's Wondrous World

The beginning of Living gave us a view of Jack living without Ma. We know that Jack’s never been apart from Ma and from the incident before Ma’s interview, we know that Jack doesn’t enjoy being separated from Ma. So I was extremely surprised when I started reading Living. I saw Jack adapting pretty well to life without Ma. There are a few mementos of Ma that Jack still holds on to, such as her tooth, and Jack does get extremely excited when things from Room are brought to his new home. But during the majority of the chapter, he doesn’t seem to be constantly thinking about Ma and Room. Granted he has a lot of things he needs to learn, but for a kid experiencing the world for the first time, I think Jack is doing great.

In class we talked about how some things that seemed like trivial details were actually huge steps for Jack. One of my favorite moments in Living was when Jack makes his first “friend”, Walker. It was such a huge step, because Jack was finally connecting with another kid. But we’re quickly reminded about how foreign this is to Jack when he tries to hug Walker and knocks him down. And Jack’s reaction to being told that you don’t just hug strangers is so innocent. “‘I love that boy Walker.’ ‘Jack, you never saw him before in your life’” (288). This was just such a pure and adorable statement. And despite the small hitch of Jack knocking the kid over, he still managed to get along with another kid.

It was also refreshing to see Jack connecting with Grandma and Steppa. Grandma and Jack’s relationship really reflected a common grandma-to-grandson dynamic, even considering Jack’s different situation. Especially considering our first meeting with Grandma (when Ma is already annoyed by her), I think her connection to Jack really puts her in a better light. And every time that Grandma could explain things to Jack or resolve a problem, it happily surprised me that Jack was open to learning from people other than Ma. On the other hand, Jack and Steppa’s relationship were a lot more buddy-buddy, and I enjoyed getting to see Jack make his first true friend.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading Room and getting to see Jack adapted to the outside world.

Jack as narrator

While reading Room, I found it really interesting seeing the world through Jack’s eyes. He was brought up seeing a very small window of the world, and believing that their life was normal. When I first started reading, I didn’t understand exactly why Jack capitalized certain nouns, until I realized it was because he’s only seen one. One Door, one Toothbrush, one Bed. But his mind is completely blown when he finally sees the ad for Ma’s medicine. That’s when he realizes that outside of Room is not completely separate from him.

Being inside Jack’s mind at this time was really eye-opening. We see the confusion and the questioning. “Dora is a drawing in TV but she’s my real friend, that’s confusing. Jeep is actually real, I can feel him with my fingers. Superman is just TV. Trees are TV but Plant is real, oh, I forgot to water her” (63). Jack’s constantly trying to fit his world together around him, and learning that there is more than just Room is pretty big. After the mind blowing revelation that there are other humans and things outside of his Room, Jack has to really turn his ideas about the world around. But this doesn’t just greatly impact Jack. The world that Ma’s painted for him comes crashing down. She can no longer protect Jack from learning about the terrible situation that they’re in and Jack soon learns about their traumatizing situation.  

I think that portraying the novel through the eyes of a five year old actually helps the reader see this story through two eyes. Ma’s thoughts are a lot easier to interpret through what we know (she was kidnapped and knows what they are being constrained by) and Jack’s observations. However, if we weren’t given Jack’s narration, I don’t think we would’ve been able to understand what he was going through. It would be extremely hard to believe that a child could be brought up, thinking that the room they live in was the only thing in the world. We wouldn’t have been able to see him slowly realize that they were imprisoned and that he was missing out on so much. Putting this novel in Jack’s eyes also emphasizes how terrible his situation is. Even though Jack doesn’t know that his life is not the norm, the reader does, and that just makes me sympathize for him so much more.