Room

by

Emma Donoghue

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Room makes teaching easy.

Jack Character Analysis

Jack is the singular and idiosyncratic protagonist and narrator of Room. A five-year-old by who has lived his entire life inside an 11-by-11 garden shed known as Room, Jack’s unique way of thinking about his limited world shapes the entire universe of Room. Jack’s preoccupation with stories and TV, his uncannily mature but unorthodox use of language, and his devoted but complicated love for his mother, whom he calls Ma, make Jack a deeply complex and intriguing character. At the start of the novel, Jack believes that there is no world outside of Room—he thinks that he, Ma, and Old Nick are the only three people on earth. Though he knows that Ma doesn’t like Old Nick, and though he’s forced to hide inside Wardrobe during Old Nick’s visits, Jack doesn’t understand exactly who Old Nick is—and definitely doesn’t realize that this man, Ma’s captor, is his biological father. Jack’s naïve and hazy view of the world begins to shift shortly after his fifth birthday. When Old Nick reveals to Ma that he’s been let go from his job, Ma begins to fear that Old Nick will soon lose his house—and will do something terrible to herself and Jack rather than let them be discovered. Ma begins the process of “unlying” to Jack about the world in order to prepare him for making a “Great Escape,” but Jack is angry, fearful, and determined to stay within the confines of Room. Nevertheless, Ma convinces Jack that he must go through with the escape plan, which requires him to play dead so that Old Nick will put Jack in the back of his truck and drive him away from Room. Jack ultimately saves both himself and Ma—but the escape turns out to be the easy part, and as Jack’s adjustment to the world begins, he finds himself struggling to understand and participate in human society. Jack thinks, feels, and loves deeply, and as he and Ma work together to survive in a sometimes-hostile, voyeuristic new world, he learns lessons about fame, growth, family, and the ways in which all humans must leave behind the familiar in order to discover the extraordinary.

Jack Quotes in Room

The Room quotes below are all either spoken by Jack or refer to Jack. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Isolation Theme Icon
).
Presents Quotes

“Up in Heaven. Was I minus one, minus two, minus three— ?”

“Nah, the numbers didn’t start till you zoomed down.”

“Through Skylight. You were all sad till I happened in your tummy.”

“You said it.” Ma leans out of Bed to switch on Lamp, he makes everything light up whoosh. I shut my eyes just in time, then open one a crack, then both.

“I cried till I didn’t have any tears left,” she tells me. “I just lay here counting the seconds.”

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker)
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:

Nothing makes Ma scared. Except Old Nick maybe. Mostly she calls him just him, I didn’t even know the name for him till I saw a cartoon about a guy that comes in the night called Old Nick. I call the real one that because he comes in the night, but he doesn’t look like the TV guy with a beard and horns and stuff.

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma, Old Nick
Related Symbols: TV
Page Number: 12
Explanation and Analysis:
Unlying Quotes

“Listen. What we see on TV is... it’s pictures of real things.”

That’s the most astonishing I ever heard.

Ma’s got her hand over her mouth.

“Dora’s real for real?”

She takes her hand away. “No, sorry. Lots of TV is made-up pictures—like, Dora’s just a drawing—but the other people, the ones with faces that look like you and me, they’re real.”

“Actual humans?”

She nods. “And the places are real too, like farms and forests and airplanes and cities. . . ”

“Nah.” Why is she tricking me? “Where would they fit?”

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker)
Related Symbols: Teeth, TV
Page Number: 59-60
Explanation and Analysis:

“I don’t think you appreciate how good you’ve got it here,” says Old Nick. […] “Aboveground, natural light, central air, it’s a cut above some places, I can tell you. Fresh fruit, toiletries, what have you, click your fingers and it’s there. Plenty girls would thank their lucky stars for a setup like this, safe as houses. Specially with the kid—”

Is that me? […] I count my teeth, I keep getting it wrong, nineteen then twenty then nineteen again. I bite my tongue till it hurts.

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Old Nick (speaker), Ma
Related Symbols: Teeth
Page Number: 69
Explanation and Analysis:

“He put a blindfold on me—”

“Like Blindman’s Buff?”

“Yeah, but not fun. He drove and drove, I was terrified.”

“Where was I?”

“You hadn’t happened yet, remember?”

I forgot. “Was the dog in the truck too?”

“There was no dog.” Ma’s sounding cranky again. “You have to let me tell this story.”

“Can I pick another?”

“It’s what happened.”

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker), Old Nick
Page Number: 94
Explanation and Analysis:

“So, Jack, we mustn’t try and hurt him again. When he came back the next night, he said, number one, nothing would ever make him tell me the code. And number two, if I ever tried a stunt like that again, he’d go away and I’d get hungrier and hungrier till I died.”

She’s stopped I think.

My tummy creaks really loud and I figure it out, why Ma’s telling me the terrible story. She’s telling me that we’re going—

Then I’m blinking and covering my eyes, everything’s all daz­zling because Lamp’s come back on.

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker), Old Nick
Page Number: 97
Explanation and Analysis:
Dying Quotes

“Don’t you want to escape?”

“Yeah. Only not really.”

[…]

Ma’s shaking her head. “It’s getting too small.”

“What is?”

“Room.”

“Room’s not small. Look.” I climb up on my chair and jump with my arms out and spin, I don’t bang into anything.

“You don’t even know what it’s doing to you.” Her voice is shaky. “You need to see things, touch things—”

“I do already.”

“More things, other things. You need more room.”

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker)
Page Number: 113-114
Explanation and Analysis:

“What’ll the person do with it?”

“Read it, of course.”

“TV persons can read?”

She stares at me. “They’re real people, remember, just like us.”

I still don’t believe that but I don’t say.

Ma does the note on a bit of ruled paper. It’s a story all about us and Room and Please send help a.s.a.p., that means super fast. Near the start, there’s two words I never saw before, Ma says they’re her names like TV persons have, what everybody in Outside used to call her, it’s only me who says Ma.

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker)
Related Symbols: TV
Page Number: 117
Explanation and Analysis:

“I’m too scared,” I shout. “I won’t do it not ever and I hate you.”

Ma’s breathing funny, she sits down on Floor. “That’s all right.”

How is it all right if I hate her?

Her hands are on her tummy. “I brought you into Room, I didn’t mean to but I did it and I’ve never once been sorry.”

I stare at her and she stares back.

“I brought you here, and tonight I’m going to get you out.”

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker)
Page Number: 128
Explanation and Analysis:

Ma’s talking in my ear, she says we need to go talk to some more police. I snuggle against her, I say, “Want to go to Bed.”

“They’ll find us somewhere to sleep in a little while.”

“No. Bed.”

“You mean in Room?” Ma’s pulled back, she’s staring in my eyes.

“Yeah. I’ve seen the world and I’m tired now.”

“Oh, Jack,” she says, “we’re never going back.”

The car starts moving and I’m crying so much I can’t stop.

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker)
Page Number: 155
Explanation and Analysis:
After Quotes

[Ma’s] walking with me up on her hip, I cling onto her shoulders. It’s dark but then there’s lights quick quick like fireworks.

“Vultures,” says Officer Oh.

Where?

“No pictures,” shouts the man police.

What pictures? I don’t see any vultures, I only see person faces with machines flashing and black fat sticks. They’re shouting but I can’t understand. Officer Oh tries to put the blanket over my head, I push it off.

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Officer Oh (speaker), Ma
Related Symbols: TV
Page Number: 159
Explanation and Analysis:

“The malnourished boy, unable to walk, is seen here lashing out convulsively at one of his rescuers.”

“Ma,” I shout.

She doesn’t come. I hear her calling, “Just a couple more minutes.”

“It’s us. It’s us in TV!”

But it’s gone blank. Pilar is standing up pointing at it with a remote and staring at me. Dr. Clay comes out, he says mad things to Pilar.

“On again,” I say. “It’s us, I want to see us.”

“I’m terribly, terribly sorry—,” says Pilar.

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker), Pilar (speaker), Dr. Clay
Related Symbols: TV
Page Number: 166
Explanation and Analysis:

“Intense interest from a number of networks,” Morris is saying, “you might consider doing a book, down the road...”

Ma’s mouth isn’t friendly. “You think we should sell ourselves before somebody else does.”

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker), Morris (speaker)
Related Symbols: TV
Page Number: 200
Explanation and Analysis:

“You keep talking about separation anxiety,” Ma’s saying to Dr. Clay, “but me and Jack are not going to be separated.”

“Still, it’s not just the two of you anymore, is it?”

Related Characters: Ma (speaker), Dr. Clay (speaker), Jack
Page Number: 209
Explanation and Analysis:

“But that’s me, the Bonsai Boy.”

“The bouncy what?” [Ma] looks at the paper again and pushes her hair out of her face, she sort of groans.

“What’s bonsai?”

“A very tiny tree. People keep them in pots indoors and cut them every day so they stay all curled up.”

I’m thinking about Plant. We never cutted her, we let her grow all she liked but she died instead. “I’m not a tree. I’m a boy.”

“It’s just a figure of speech.” She squeezes the paper into the trash.

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker)
Page Number: 216
Explanation and Analysis:

“He certainly seems to be taking giant steps toward recovery,” says the puffy-hair woman. “Now, you said just now it was ‘easier to control’ Jack when you were in captivity—”

“No, control things."

“You must feel an almost pathological need — understandably — to stand guard between your son and the world.”

“Yeah, it’s called being a mother.” Ma nearly snarls it.

“Is there a sense in which you miss being behind a locked door?”

Ma turns to Morris. “Is she allowed to ask me such stupid questions?”

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker), Morris
Related Symbols: TV
Page Number: 236
Explanation and Analysis:
Living Quotes

“Can you come here and swing in the hammock?”

Pretty soon,” she says.

“When?”

“I don’t know, it depends. Is everything OK there with Grandma?”

“And Steppa.”

“Right. What’s new?”

“Everything,” I say.

That makes her laugh, I don’t know why.

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker), Grandma, Steppa/Leo
Page Number: 271
Explanation and Analysis:

“Did you play LEGO with your kids?”

“I don’t have any kids.”

“How come?”

Steppa shrugs. “Just never happened.”

I watch his hands, they’re lumpy but clever. “Is there a word for adults when they aren’t parents?”

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Steppa/Leo (speaker)
Page Number: 281
Explanation and Analysis:

“Tooth’s not just a thing, I have to have him.”

“Trust me, you don’t.”

“But—”

[Ma] holds on to my shoulders. “Bye-bye rotten old tooth. End of story.”

She’s nearly laughing but I’m not.

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker)
Related Symbols: Teeth
Page Number: 307
Explanation and Analysis:

“I don’t think this is it,” I whisper to Ma.

“Yeah, it is.”

Our voices sound not like us. “Has it got shrunk?”

“No, it was always like this.”

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker)
Page Number: 319
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Room LitChart as a printable PDF.
Room PDF

Jack Quotes in Room

The Room quotes below are all either spoken by Jack or refer to Jack. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Isolation Theme Icon
).
Presents Quotes

“Up in Heaven. Was I minus one, minus two, minus three— ?”

“Nah, the numbers didn’t start till you zoomed down.”

“Through Skylight. You were all sad till I happened in your tummy.”

“You said it.” Ma leans out of Bed to switch on Lamp, he makes everything light up whoosh. I shut my eyes just in time, then open one a crack, then both.

“I cried till I didn’t have any tears left,” she tells me. “I just lay here counting the seconds.”

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker)
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:

Nothing makes Ma scared. Except Old Nick maybe. Mostly she calls him just him, I didn’t even know the name for him till I saw a cartoon about a guy that comes in the night called Old Nick. I call the real one that because he comes in the night, but he doesn’t look like the TV guy with a beard and horns and stuff.

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma, Old Nick
Related Symbols: TV
Page Number: 12
Explanation and Analysis:
Unlying Quotes

“Listen. What we see on TV is... it’s pictures of real things.”

That’s the most astonishing I ever heard.

Ma’s got her hand over her mouth.

“Dora’s real for real?”

She takes her hand away. “No, sorry. Lots of TV is made-up pictures—like, Dora’s just a drawing—but the other people, the ones with faces that look like you and me, they’re real.”

“Actual humans?”

She nods. “And the places are real too, like farms and forests and airplanes and cities. . . ”

“Nah.” Why is she tricking me? “Where would they fit?”

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker)
Related Symbols: Teeth, TV
Page Number: 59-60
Explanation and Analysis:

“I don’t think you appreciate how good you’ve got it here,” says Old Nick. […] “Aboveground, natural light, central air, it’s a cut above some places, I can tell you. Fresh fruit, toiletries, what have you, click your fingers and it’s there. Plenty girls would thank their lucky stars for a setup like this, safe as houses. Specially with the kid—”

Is that me? […] I count my teeth, I keep getting it wrong, nineteen then twenty then nineteen again. I bite my tongue till it hurts.

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Old Nick (speaker), Ma
Related Symbols: Teeth
Page Number: 69
Explanation and Analysis:

“He put a blindfold on me—”

“Like Blindman’s Buff?”

“Yeah, but not fun. He drove and drove, I was terrified.”

“Where was I?”

“You hadn’t happened yet, remember?”

I forgot. “Was the dog in the truck too?”

“There was no dog.” Ma’s sounding cranky again. “You have to let me tell this story.”

“Can I pick another?”

“It’s what happened.”

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker), Old Nick
Page Number: 94
Explanation and Analysis:

“So, Jack, we mustn’t try and hurt him again. When he came back the next night, he said, number one, nothing would ever make him tell me the code. And number two, if I ever tried a stunt like that again, he’d go away and I’d get hungrier and hungrier till I died.”

She’s stopped I think.

My tummy creaks really loud and I figure it out, why Ma’s telling me the terrible story. She’s telling me that we’re going—

Then I’m blinking and covering my eyes, everything’s all daz­zling because Lamp’s come back on.

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker), Old Nick
Page Number: 97
Explanation and Analysis:
Dying Quotes

“Don’t you want to escape?”

“Yeah. Only not really.”

[…]

Ma’s shaking her head. “It’s getting too small.”

“What is?”

“Room.”

“Room’s not small. Look.” I climb up on my chair and jump with my arms out and spin, I don’t bang into anything.

“You don’t even know what it’s doing to you.” Her voice is shaky. “You need to see things, touch things—”

“I do already.”

“More things, other things. You need more room.”

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker)
Page Number: 113-114
Explanation and Analysis:

“What’ll the person do with it?”

“Read it, of course.”

“TV persons can read?”

She stares at me. “They’re real people, remember, just like us.”

I still don’t believe that but I don’t say.

Ma does the note on a bit of ruled paper. It’s a story all about us and Room and Please send help a.s.a.p., that means super fast. Near the start, there’s two words I never saw before, Ma says they’re her names like TV persons have, what everybody in Outside used to call her, it’s only me who says Ma.

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker)
Related Symbols: TV
Page Number: 117
Explanation and Analysis:

“I’m too scared,” I shout. “I won’t do it not ever and I hate you.”

Ma’s breathing funny, she sits down on Floor. “That’s all right.”

How is it all right if I hate her?

Her hands are on her tummy. “I brought you into Room, I didn’t mean to but I did it and I’ve never once been sorry.”

I stare at her and she stares back.

“I brought you here, and tonight I’m going to get you out.”

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker)
Page Number: 128
Explanation and Analysis:

Ma’s talking in my ear, she says we need to go talk to some more police. I snuggle against her, I say, “Want to go to Bed.”

“They’ll find us somewhere to sleep in a little while.”

“No. Bed.”

“You mean in Room?” Ma’s pulled back, she’s staring in my eyes.

“Yeah. I’ve seen the world and I’m tired now.”

“Oh, Jack,” she says, “we’re never going back.”

The car starts moving and I’m crying so much I can’t stop.

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker)
Page Number: 155
Explanation and Analysis:
After Quotes

[Ma’s] walking with me up on her hip, I cling onto her shoulders. It’s dark but then there’s lights quick quick like fireworks.

“Vultures,” says Officer Oh.

Where?

“No pictures,” shouts the man police.

What pictures? I don’t see any vultures, I only see person faces with machines flashing and black fat sticks. They’re shouting but I can’t understand. Officer Oh tries to put the blanket over my head, I push it off.

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Officer Oh (speaker), Ma
Related Symbols: TV
Page Number: 159
Explanation and Analysis:

“The malnourished boy, unable to walk, is seen here lashing out convulsively at one of his rescuers.”

“Ma,” I shout.

She doesn’t come. I hear her calling, “Just a couple more minutes.”

“It’s us. It’s us in TV!”

But it’s gone blank. Pilar is standing up pointing at it with a remote and staring at me. Dr. Clay comes out, he says mad things to Pilar.

“On again,” I say. “It’s us, I want to see us.”

“I’m terribly, terribly sorry—,” says Pilar.

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker), Pilar (speaker), Dr. Clay
Related Symbols: TV
Page Number: 166
Explanation and Analysis:

“Intense interest from a number of networks,” Morris is saying, “you might consider doing a book, down the road...”

Ma’s mouth isn’t friendly. “You think we should sell ourselves before somebody else does.”

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker), Morris (speaker)
Related Symbols: TV
Page Number: 200
Explanation and Analysis:

“You keep talking about separation anxiety,” Ma’s saying to Dr. Clay, “but me and Jack are not going to be separated.”

“Still, it’s not just the two of you anymore, is it?”

Related Characters: Ma (speaker), Dr. Clay (speaker), Jack
Page Number: 209
Explanation and Analysis:

“But that’s me, the Bonsai Boy.”

“The bouncy what?” [Ma] looks at the paper again and pushes her hair out of her face, she sort of groans.

“What’s bonsai?”

“A very tiny tree. People keep them in pots indoors and cut them every day so they stay all curled up.”

I’m thinking about Plant. We never cutted her, we let her grow all she liked but she died instead. “I’m not a tree. I’m a boy.”

“It’s just a figure of speech.” She squeezes the paper into the trash.

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker)
Page Number: 216
Explanation and Analysis:

“He certainly seems to be taking giant steps toward recovery,” says the puffy-hair woman. “Now, you said just now it was ‘easier to control’ Jack when you were in captivity—”

“No, control things."

“You must feel an almost pathological need — understandably — to stand guard between your son and the world.”

“Yeah, it’s called being a mother.” Ma nearly snarls it.

“Is there a sense in which you miss being behind a locked door?”

Ma turns to Morris. “Is she allowed to ask me such stupid questions?”

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker), Morris
Related Symbols: TV
Page Number: 236
Explanation and Analysis:
Living Quotes

“Can you come here and swing in the hammock?”

Pretty soon,” she says.

“When?”

“I don’t know, it depends. Is everything OK there with Grandma?”

“And Steppa.”

“Right. What’s new?”

“Everything,” I say.

That makes her laugh, I don’t know why.

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker), Grandma, Steppa/Leo
Page Number: 271
Explanation and Analysis:

“Did you play LEGO with your kids?”

“I don’t have any kids.”

“How come?”

Steppa shrugs. “Just never happened.”

I watch his hands, they’re lumpy but clever. “Is there a word for adults when they aren’t parents?”

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Steppa/Leo (speaker)
Page Number: 281
Explanation and Analysis:

“Tooth’s not just a thing, I have to have him.”

“Trust me, you don’t.”

“But—”

[Ma] holds on to my shoulders. “Bye-bye rotten old tooth. End of story.”

She’s nearly laughing but I’m not.

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker)
Related Symbols: Teeth
Page Number: 307
Explanation and Analysis:

“I don’t think this is it,” I whisper to Ma.

“Yeah, it is.”

Our voices sound not like us. “Has it got shrunk?”

“No, it was always like this.”

Related Characters: Jack (speaker), Ma (speaker)
Page Number: 319
Explanation and Analysis: