Room

Superficially, Emma Donoghue's Room bears a resemblance to the Josef Fritzl case in which a father kept his daughter and her children (conceived through incest) in captivity for over twenty years. Although Room also deals with a mother and child (conceived through rape) kept in captivity, the story is not so much about captivity as it is about the mother-child relationship that develops due to their circumstances, as well as the changes it undergoes when they are thrust into the world.

Room more closely resembles the Greek film Dogtooth, in which a husband and wife keep their children in captivity and manipulate their understanding of the world. But if Dogtooth shows the psychological horrors a parent can inflict on his or her children, Room shows the psychological strength a devoted parent can impart within the same situation.

The story is not as much about "Ma," the kidnapped woman (we never learn her actual name) as it is about her five-year-old son, Jack, the first-person narrator of the novel. Jack has never known a world other than the 11 x 11 soundproofed shed he inhabits with Ma, and he has essentially no comprehension of there being an "outside." He is in some ways extremely precocious (verbally, mathematically), but in others utterly naive. Jack and Ma have a television, for example, but Ma, not wanting Jack to understand that he is deeply deprived, tells him that the people he sees on TV are every but as much a fantasy as his favorite Dora the Explorer.

When, after his fifth birthday, Ma begins to teach Jack about the "outside," he doesn't really believe her. Despite all her efforts to create a normal life for Jack, his development has been seriously stunted. Just how much so becomes clear when the two escape and are placed on a psychiatric ward. For all his intellectual sophistication, Jack cannot go up or down stairs, wear shoes, or stand to be away from Ma for even a moment. He has no social skills whatsoever, and he doesn't know how to play like a normal child. The outside world is so threatening that Jack wishes they were back in the room where he had exclusive access to his mother.

While the first half of the novel chronicles the difficulties of captivity, the second half chronicles the difficulties of living in the world and shows Jack very slowly coming to terms with his new life. Room ultimately suggests that ignorance is not really bliss as Jack comes to enjoy the opportunities available to him in the real world and he and Ma make a list of the things they hope to accomplish.