Up to very recently in Room, Jack has only known or believed in two realities. There is his reality, which is Room and contains his Ma, Bed, Wardrobe, Table, Eggsnake, etc. Then there is also the TV reality. He thought that everything that didn't exist in Room could only ever exist in TV. There was no outside, there was no world that he could explore and learn about and have a real life in. There was only Room. But as he turned 5, he started to ask questions like kids do. He wanted to know more about how and why things were. Unfortunately for him, Ma started to give him answers he couldn't quite comprehend. Ma started to tell him that there was an outside world. One that if they ever got out of Room he would be able to experience. He could find his long lost family and maybe even live normally someday. This is what Ma really wants for him.
The thing that truly allows Jack to understand that Outside was real was an airplane passing over the skylight. Before that he would absolutely deny any possibility that Outside could exist. Then Ma started coming up with plans to escape. At first Jack plays along, saying that he will want to escape. But then he learned that Ma might not be able to come. Then he flat out doesn't want to escape anymore. This is completely understandable. He will be in a world that is larger than anything he could imagine. He will be out there with nothing that is familiar to him. No Ma to take care of him, and tell him what to do. None of the comforts that he has known for his entire life. Everything will be new and scary to him. This could put him into shock. The world is essentially infinitely larger than the small room he knew, and he will have no way of knowing how to navigate it. He has never talked to somebody that wasn't his mother, but will need to in order to rescue her. I can only imagine that Jack is going to have a real tough time if and/or when he escapes
"Dying" is an interesting chapter because we finally get to see Ma and Jack plan an escape. I enjoyed reading through the various schemes and Ma's tweaks in each of the plans. I can't wait to find out how they actually escape from room!
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing that Jack is even able to comprehend the "third reality" of the outside to the level that he does to escape. Jack is able to go through with the escape plan literally into the unknown for him, and does a pretty good job of it given how, as you mentioned, he had never talked to another human being or known anything besides the room and the TV.
ReplyDeleteThe level of bravery required by Jack to successfully execute Ma's mission astounds me, and I completely sympathize with his lack of desire to do so. And then, not only does he make it to Outside, but he rescues Ma alone, even without her note. This experience is almost certainly a traumatic one for Jack, and I'm very eager to see how it affects the rest of the novel. Will Jack see Outside as worth it?
ReplyDeleteI agree that it's immensely difficult for Jack to comprehend that there's an outside world, and it was pretty admirable and impressive how quickly he adjusted. This made me realize just how important having TV was to making Jack able to pull off the plan and just to adjust to the outside world in general. He actually knows a lot about the real world, he just thought it was fake, so when he goes inside he can use the things he's seen on TV to relate to what he's doing and to adjust better. If Jack didn't have TV, I don't think there's any chance he'd be able to function Outside, as literally everything would be something he'd never seen before in any form, and he'd have had no idea what to do, so they wouldn't have escaped.
ReplyDeleteI think the way you phrased this really emphasizes just how mind-boggling the Outside is to someone like Jack, and honestly I don't know if the book portrays it extremely enough. For him it is just as incomprehensible as it is for us to imagine the size of other galaxies or universes. Jack has simply no concept of scale at all. Even though we have never left Earth, we never feel bounded by our environment. Jack has always lived in a single defined space.
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