Jack's Developments and His Parental Figures

            At this point in the story I think the Grandparents have been more effective at parenting Jack. We must give credit to Ma for her work in a terrible situation, but while she is at the clinic in an unhealthy state, the grandparents were major in the parenting of Jack. From Jack’s narration, it seems like he decently likes Leo and the Grandma, and he seems to learn a ton of new things. As Grandma says on page 259, “You’re breathing and walking and talking and sleeping without your Ma, aren’t you? So, I bet you can eat without her too.” Although these are regular things for most people. Jack is a crazy exception, any growth at all is very important for his development. At the clinic, Jack makes development, but not as much as I expected. He can’t really learn, and even when he wanted to go outside again, Ma hinders that. I think the Grandparent’s house was a great environment for Jack to learn. He spent a lot of time outside, Leo and Grandma both seem very nice and caring for him, and Grandma has experience being a parent. Multiple occurrences, like going the play structure, and to the mall, are parenting things that Grandma can teach better than Ma.      

            To me it also seems like Ma is not in a good condition to care for Jack right now. She tried to kill herself about a week ago, and she seems barely healthy. As we mentioned in class, this all happens over a relatively short amount of time. I personally think it would be better for both Ma and Jack to be apart. Jack is learning to live with new people, and Ma is returning to a healthy mental state.

            Another thing that shows Jack’s development to me, is how he doesn’t mention everything in the narration. He just mentions in passing that he did go to the natural history museum, and I thought that would be a big scene in the narrative. I think this shows as the more things Jack sees, the less he feels the need to talk about everything he does.     

            We also talked in class about Jack didn’t capitalize “the door” on the last page of the book. This is another part of his development over a short period. I think he really needs all the diversity he can in his life, while he is still young and Grandma and Steppa can provide that for him. Did anyone else feel like they did a better job than Ma? Or at least they did a good job at the time?

Doubting Room's Narrative and The Mind of a 5 Year Old

So far, I have been really enjoying “Room.” The plot and premise are very interesting, and the choice of Jack being the narrator makes the narrative that much more powerful. However, there are quite a few parts where I find myself questioning the likelihood of the narrative. While I enjoy the book, I question quote a few of the events. Mainly, the situations with the skylight. Towards the end of “The Unlying” Jack sees differences in the skylight. On page 86, Jack narrates, “Skylight’s different today. She’s got a black bit like an eye. ‘Look, ma.’ She stares up and grins. ‘It’s a leaf.’ ‘Why?’ ‘The wind must have blown it off a tree onto the glass.’ ‘An actual tree in Outside?’ ‘Yeah. See? That proves it. The whole world is out there.’” At this point Jack still doesn’t really understand the concept of outside. But I still find it weird how he’s never noticed anything over the skylight before. I suppose he may only notice different things on Skylight now that he has a concept of a real Outside, but it still seems a bit weird to me. If I were in Jack’s situation, the skylight would be one of the most interesting parts of the room, as it is always changing. After reading this, I wondered how Ma explained clouds or rain, or the other parts of outside that also occur in TV.  Considering a leaf fell on the skylight close to April, there must have been more in the Fall. There was also the situation with the airplane. Jack narrates, “’I saw it, it was a real airplane only tiny.’ ‘That’s just because it’s far away,’ she says all smiling. ‘I bet if you saw it up close it would actually be huge.’” This distracted me, as if there was an airplane going over now, that must mean that airplanes have a pattern of going over the Skylight. This is the first time he sees a real airplane, and it seems too convenient seeming he just learned about the real world. This airplane situation made me think about the possibility of other things going over skylight. It seems like it would be hard to describe to a child watching the news about the current weather looking up and seeing exactly that, and not understanding it was the same. I suppose Jack could have seen these things before, and assumed like the outside world was just imaginary and everything was there. But, if he had seen leaves on skylight before he wouldn’t have been so excited by the leaf. Another example of the weirdness of the skylight, is just a few pages earlier. Jack talks about the skylight saying, “It’s all black now except Skylight has a dark kind of brightness. Ma says in a city there’s always some light from the streetlights and the lamps in the buildings.”  Either Jack just noticed the light for the first time, which seems weird as the way she describes it, it should happen every night, or he’s always known about the light coming from the city. Always knowing doesn’t make sense because he only just recently learned it was real, and just now learning doesn’t make sense because it has been the same every night, and the way he describes it, the light darkness seems new. These situations make the read a little bit unbelievable, but I am still greatly enjoying the book. These situations could easily be explained by a five year-old not noticing the holes in the picture Ma has painted for Jack over these years. It’s hard to try and see into the head of a five year-old, but that is what makes this novel so powerful. I think these weirdness’s are my own doubting of how a five year-old thinks, but did anyone else find the whole narration a bit unbelievable?