Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Room, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Isolation
Growing Up
Parenting
Voyeurism and the Media
Summary
Analysis
Jack wakes up on the day of his fifth birthday and begins asking his mother, whom he calls Ma, questions about the day he was born. Ma tells Jack about how she was miserable before he “zoomed down” from Heaven, passed through Skylight, and into Room, where he slid out of her “onto [Rug] with [his] eyes wide open.” Jack looks down at Rug and notices a dark stain—the spot he “spilled by mistake getting born.”
The opening lines of the novel establish Ma and Jack’s intense emotional—and physical—isolation. Ma admits to the misery she felt before Jack came to join her, and Jack demonstrates how his attachment to the objects in Room have imbued simple things, like Rug, with an almost person-like quality.
Themes
As Jack adjusts to the air in Room, he tries to discern whether “he” came last night to visit Ma—the air is “different” after “he” comes. Ma asks Jack whether he’d like to open his birthday present now or later. Even though it’s early, Jack says he wants his present now. Ma pulls a gift from under her pillow, and Jack unwraps it: it is a pencil drawing of Jack sleeping. Jack isn’t pleased by the gift—he says he doesn’t like it when Ma is “on at the same time [he’s] off.” Jack looks for a place to hang the drawing—he knows Ma will want it somewhere where Old Nick can’t see it. After hanging the sketch inside Wardrobe, Jack asks Ma if he can “have some.” Ma asks if they can stop now that Jack is five, but Jack insists on breastfeeding.
As the opening scene of the novel continues to unfold, Donoghue shows the limited resources Ma and Jack have—and insinuates that Jack is hungry for more both physically and emotionally. He wants presents and material things on the one hand, and on the other hand, he still wants to supplement food with breastfeeding—an act that provides both physical and emotional sustenance.
Themes
Jack counts out one hundred pieces of cereal into a bowl and carefully pours in the milk. He eats his breakfast with his favorite spoon, Meltedy Spoon, which once got leaned against a boiling pot of pasta and is now “not the same.” Jack strokes Table as he eats, hoping to make the scratches on “her” surface “better.” Ma and Jack play a version of Name That Tune involving humming, and sing each other a mix of nursery rhymes like “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and pop songs like Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out of My Head.”
Ma and Jack are living in contemporary times, but other than the ghostly echoes of cultural touchstones like pop songs, they are entirely isolated. Jack’s deep attachment to the objects within Room gets explored even further as he seems to want to heal and commune with them.
Themes
After breakfast, Ma and Jack brush their teeth using Toothbrush, their shared implement. Ma compliments Jack’s “dazzling” teeth. Jack feels bad for Ma, who’s teeth are “pretty rotted” because she didn’t brush them for a long time years ago. As Ma and Jack tidy up Room, Jack laments that he can’t see “God’s yellow face” through Skylight today. Ma and Jack complete the “thousands” of tasks they have to do each morning, including watering Plant. Plant and Spider are the only two things alive in Room—Jack laments that long ago, Ma killed some ants and a mosquito that had come to visit them.
Jack and Ma’s daily routine establishes several important hallmarks of their life in Room. First, it shows how important teeth are to them—though Ma’s have all rotted, symbolically illustrating how deeply she’s lost her sense of self, Jack’s are still “dazzling” and full of potential. The regimented and peculiar way Ma and Jack structure their mornings, combined with Jack’s starvation for contact with other living creatures, paints a picture of the darker side of life in Room. Everything is sunny from Jack’s point of view, but Donoghue is demonstrating how life in Room is already breaking down.
Themes
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Jack and Ma take their daily pills. Ma and Jack both take vitamins, but Ma also takes a birth control pill and a “killer” for her pain—she has a bad tooth which Jack calls Bad Tooth, and it hurts her all day every day. Jacks asks Ma why she never takes more than one killer, two in an emergency, and Ma replies that she doesn’t want to “need them all the time.”
Donoghue uses this passage to foreshadow Ma’s struggles with substance abuse, but also to demonstrate just how much restraint Ma exercises on a daily basis in order to make sure that she’s a good parent to Jack.
Themes
At 8:30, Jack turns on TV and watches Dora the Explorer—his favorite cartoon. Jack understands that sometimes Dora speaks in a language called Spanish, but doesn’t think it is a “real” language. After Dora, Jack switches through the channels, which he thinks of as separate “planets.” Ma urges Jack to turn off the TV because it rots his brain, but Jack asks if he can watch a little more because of his birthday, and Ma consents. Jack gets a little scared of SpongeBob SquarePants, and wishes he were unafraid of everything, like Ma. The only thing Ma is afraid of, Jack says, is Old Nick—a man whose real name he and Ma don’t even know. Jack started calling the man Old Nick after he saw “a cartoon [on TV] about a guy that comes in the night.”
TV is a way for Jack to escape the bleak reality of Room, but Ma is concerned that if Jack becomes too reliant on it, the machine will dull his mind and erase all the hard work she’s done to instill a moral and emotional center in Jack’s life. TV, however, allows Jack to make sense of things in a different way. Ma’s captor and rapist—and her and Jack’s jailer—is called “Old Nick” because of a cartoon Jack saw on TV. The cartoon may have been of Santa Claus, often nicknamed Old Saint Nick—or a darker entity, such as a demon or the devil himself, who has also been known throughout history as “Old Nick.”
Themes
Ma marks Jack’s height on the wall. Jack asks how tall he is, but Ma says she doesn’t know exactly—she says that maybe they can ask Old Nick for a measuring tape for “Sunday treat.” When Jack points out that he didn’t get much taller between his fourth birthday and his fifth, Ma says that’s “normal”—Jack asks what “normal” is. Ma says “normal” means things are okay.
This passage shows Jack’s inability to understand what normal is, and Ma’s inability to properly explain it to him without revealing how abnormal their current existence truly is (and destabilizing Jack’s whole world in the process).
Themes
Jack says he plans to get bigger and taller until he smashes “through Skylight into Outer Space” so that he can visit Dora and SpongeBob on their foreign planets. Ma runs a bath, and Jack plays with some homemade toys. They bathe together and then get dressed for “Phys Ed”—they rearrange the furniture in Room and run “Track” between Bed, Wardrobe, and Lamp, timing one another and cheering each other on.
Donoghue provides more glimpses into the peculiar logic and carefully-arranged routines which govern Ma and Jack’s life. It’s clear that while Ma is trying to keep Jack active and healthy, she’s also limiting what he knows about the world—he believes the only thing beyond Room is Outer Space, and that TV allows him to glimpse other “planets.”
Themes
After lunch, Ma and Jack play Orchestra by banging on objects in Room to make different noises. Jack uses a cereal box guitar collaged with pictures from old catalogs to make some twanging noises. As Jack looks at the pictures on the box, he laments that Old Nick no longer brings him and Ma catalogs so that they can pick out their old clothes—Old Nick, Ma says, is “getting meaner.”
This passage establishes that some of the games Ma and Jack play are not just for fun—Ma is enlisting Jack’s help in making noise that might attract people to Room and secure their rescue. Ma’s remark about Old Nick “getting meaner” provides her motivation for involving Jack in such games—she’s clearly concerned about both of their futures.
Themes
After Orchestra, Ma and Jack sit together and read. There are only 10 books in Room—among them are The Runaway Bunny, Alice in Wonderland, Dylan the Digger, Twilight, and The Da Vinci Code. Ma hardly ever reads, but Jack loves his picture books. Reading books, though, confuses Jack, who believes that women, men, boys, and girls aren’t “real” except for himself, Ma, and Old Nick. After reading, Ma and Jack lie down for a nap, and Jack breastfeeds.
Books are yet another way for Jack to understand things about the world—but even as they enliven his imagination and entertain him, at the end of the day, they only confuse him further about things that are “real.”
Themes
After naptime, Ma suggests Jack make his own ruler to measure the heights and lengths of things in Room, and she helps him create a ruler that seems mostly accurate. Jack excitedly runs around “counting the tall” of everything in Room. By the time he’s finished measuring, it’s time for dinner—spaghetti and fresh broccoli, which helps Jack and Ma to be “extra alive.” While Ma cooks, Jack asks why Plant is drooping, and Ma says she needs some special food. Jack suggests Ma ask for it for Sundaytreat, but Ma says she has too much to ask for already.
Plant’s waning health seems to externalize Ma’s fears about her and Jack’s own longevity and ability to survive in Room. Even though Ma is able to request certain luxuries like fresh vegetables each Sunday for a “treat,” she’s getting worried about how to keep her and Jack healthy in the long-term.
Themes
After dinner, Ma and Jack make a birthday cake. Jack is excited to blow out his candles. He uses the discarded eggshells to lengthen Eggsnake, a project “longer than all around Room” he and Ma have been working on for years. Jack waits “hours and hours” for his cake to finish baking, and then helps Ma ice it and put some chocolates on top. When it’s time for candles, though, Ma tells Jack there aren’t any, and Jack throws a fit. He calls the cake “stinky” and yells at Ma for asking for her painkillers rather than candles last Sundaytreat. Ma tries to calm Jack down and reminds him that they need to ask Old Nick only for things he can get easily and cheaply from the store. Jack retorts that “stores are [only] in TV.” Ma shuts her eyes, and Jack wonders if her “battery [is] used up.”
Even though Ma is trying to give Jack nice things every once in a while, like a cake on his birthday, there simply isn’t enough: Jack’s demands are growing just as quickly as he is. Ma’s stress is evident as Jack explodes in a tantrum. She isn’t even quite angry—she’s just upset that she can’t seem to provide enough for her child.
Themes
Jack and Ma make up and enjoy Jack’s birthday cake. Ma has to chew gently, using only the teeth in the front of her mouth. Jack pulls the chocolate pieces off the top and shows Ma the holes they’ve left behind. Ma says the holes are like craters. When Jack asks what craters are, she describes them as “holes where something happened.” After cake, it is 8:33—too late for TV. Jack gets ready for bed while Ma cleans up and writes a list of groceries for Old Nick.
As the night goes on, Ma and Jack prepare for Old Nick’s arrival. His visits are both opportunities for Ma and Jack to get the things they need to survive—and dangerous, frightening ordeals to which they must both subject themselves in very different ways.
Themes
At three minutes before nine, Jack asks Ma if he can breastfeed. She tells him it’s too late and instructs him to get into Wardrobe and lie down on his makeshift bed in there. Jack listens to Ma getting ready for bed, and they play word games through the slats in Wardrobe. Jack asks Ma why he has to get “hided away,” and Ma explains that she doesn’t ever want Old Nick to be able to look at Jack. She urges him to go to sleep quickly as she gets into her own bed and shuts off Lamp. Jack, though, is wired from the cake and excitement of his birthday.
Ma is attempting to do her best to shield Jack from Old Nick’s influence, but as Jack’s curiosity grows and grows, her ability to keep her child safe from the man who has done them both so much harm is waning.
Themes
After a long time passes, Jack whispers to Ma and asks if Old Nick is coming. Ma says he must not be. Jack scurries out of Wardrobe and into bed with Ma. He breastfeeds and tries to resist falling asleep—he doesn’t want for it to not be his birthday anymore. In the middle of the night, Jack wakes up to Ma standing beside Lamp, flicking the light on and off. Ma does this often—Jack thinks it “helps her get to sleep.” After a few minutes, Ma stops flicking Lamp, crawls back into bed, and goes to sleep.
Just like Orchestra, Ma’s fiddling with Lamp is a clear attempt to draw attention—and help—to Room. Jack doesn’t understand that they’re captives, and so he doesn’t comprehend what Ma is trying to do.
Themes
In the morning, Ma lets Jack have cake for breakfast. After bath time, Ma helps Jack build a ball to play catch with out of scrunched-up paper. Ma plays happily even though catch “pings her bad wrist sometimes.” For lunch, Ma and Jack eat pancakes, but because there’s not a lot of mix left, the cakes are very thin and tasteless. While “sunbathing” under Skylight, Ma falls asleep. Jack hears a sound and quietly gets up so as not to wake Ma. He follows the sound over to Stove, where he sees a “for really real not TV” a live animal—a mouse. Jack tries to get closer to the mouse, but it scurries beneath the stove.
The arrival of the mouse is one of the several incidents that precipitate Ma and Jack’s desire—and need—to escape from Room. As Jack begins realizing that there are creatures in the world beyond himself, Ma, and Old Nick, his curiosity skyrockets, and Ma must help him develop a new understanding of what the world really is.
Themes
Jack opens Refrigerator and gets out some bread. He leaves some crumbs on a plate down by the stove, then crouches down and waits for Mouse to return. This time, when Mouse emerges from Stove, Jack stays very still and watches him—but is surprised by a huge whack. He turns around to see that Ma has flung a book at Mouse, breaking the plate on the floor and scaring Mouse away. Ma angrily moves Stove away from the wall and starts shoving aluminum foil in a small crack in the wall, explaining to Jack that mice carry diseases and breed quickly.
Just as Ma shelters Jack from Old Nick and tries to keep his health and hygiene in check, she tries to protect him from things that could hurt him—even when Jack doesn’t understand why they’re dangerous, and he resents her for keeping him from them.
Themes
To calm Jack down, Ma reads him some nursery rhymes from a book. She changes some of the names in the book to “Jack” to make him laugh. Soon it’s time for dinner, and afterwards, Ma and Jack play chess on a magnetic set and then watch a wildlife program on TV. When Ma shuts TV off, Jack feels like crying. After breastfeeding and listening to some more stories and rhymes, Jack lets Ma carry him into Wardrobe. Once he’s inside, he hears the beeping of Door—Old Nick has arrived.
Even the gentle, happy moments of Ma and Jack’s days together in Room are clouded by the knowledge that each night, Old Nick might show up.
Themes
Jack listens as Old Nick enters Room. He points out the birthday cake and asks how old Jack is now—Ma doesn’t answer, but Jack whispers “five” from inside Wardrobe. Old Nick approaches Wardrobe and asks Jack if he wants to come out, but Ma replies that Jack is almost asleep. Old Nick asks for some cake. Ma tells him that it’s stale. Old Nick grows angry and begins outlining how much he does for Ma and Jack every day. Ma agrees to let him have some cake. After tasting it, Old Nick remarks that it is indeed “pretty stale.” Lamp snaps off and Jack listens as Ma and Old Nick get into Bed. Old Nick begins “creak[ing]” Bed, and Jack counts the number of creaks—217.
Jack has never really laid eyes on Old Nick, and Old Nick hasn’t seen Jack, either. The two of them don’t talk or communicate in any way—but each’s curiosity about the other is slowly mounting. Jack doesn’t understand what transpires between Ma and Old Nick during their visits—but readers are able to intuit very easily that Old Nick visits Room to rape Ma while Jack listens nervously, but mostly obliviously.
Themes
In the morning, Jack asks Ma why Old Nick didn’t bring him a birthday present. Ma says that she doesn’t want Old Nick bringing things to Jack. Jack laments that he’s never gotten a present in his whole life, and he says he wants Old Nick to bring him a dog named Lucky. Ma insists there isn’t room for a dog, and begins pointing out all the reasons they can’t have a dog. Ma and Jack argue, and Jack begins sobbing. To calm Jack down, Ma lets him breastfeed.
This passage, and the argument Ma and Jack have within it, shows that as Jack is growing older, he wants more from life—and is growing increasingly frustrated with Ma’s answers as to why he can’t have certain things.
Themes
Ma and Jack begin their “busy morning.” They do laundry in the bathtub, then make lunch and take a nap. After nap, it’s time for “Scream,” a game they play on weekdays—during this game, Ma and Jack climb up onto Table to get closer to Skylight and then scream upwards as loud as they can.
Scream is yet another “game” that Jack thinks is for fun, but which Ma—and Donoghue’s readers—know is meant to try to draw help to Room.
Themes
Jack draws and practices writing while Ma sucks on an ice cube to try to dull the pain from Bad Tooth. Jack says he wishes he had a bad tooth, too. Ma chastises him for speaking and thinking that way. It rains all day, and Jack and Ma sing songs about the rain. After a dinner of fish sticks, Ma and Jack watch a cooking program on TV. Ma suggests they move some furniture around Room to switch things up, but the idea upsets Jack, who doesn’t want to move anything from its designated place. Ma puts Jack to bed in Wardrobe, and Jack is sad that he and Ma had so many fights in one day.
This passage shows that the increase in tension between Ma and Jack is something new in their relationship. As Jack is growing older, yearning for some measure of agency and trying to figure out more about his life, he and Ma are coming into conflict more and more often.
Themes
In the morning, there are two things on top of Table. Jack is thrilled—one is a remote-control jeep, a “late birthday present” from Old Nick. Jack immediately begins playing with the toy, but Ma warns him to be gentle with it and not to use up all the batteries—once it runs out, there are no more. Jack plays with his jeep while Ma cleans Room with a vinegar solution and vacuums. Jack can tell that Ma’s teeth are bothering her because all day she holds her face and keeps letting out large, long sighs. Jack has to remind Ma to make dinner—but even at mealtime, she doesn’t eat anything.
As teeth are a symbol connected to identity, independence, and the self, it’s no coincidence that Ma’s teeth pain her all day after she secures a present from Old Nick. Ma has sacrificed one of her moral standings—that Old Nick and Jack should have no interaction, and that Jack should learn to see Old Nick as an antagonist—and now feels both physically and emotionally compromised.
Themes
After dinner, Ma and Jack watch music videos on TV. Jack loves listening to “Rihanna and T.I. and Lady Gaga and Kanye West.” Jack asks why rap stars wear sunglasses all the time, and Ma explains it’s because they’re famous. After videos, Ma tucks Jack into Wardrobe—he insists on sleeping with the jeep. Ma says Jack can sleep with the remote, but she says the jeep itself needs to go up on a shelf over Bed. Jack asks Ma, through Wardrobe’s slats, where the two of them go when they’re asleep. Ma replies that they are “never anywhere but here.” Jack thinks Ma’s voice sounds sad.
It's hard to explain fame and celebrity to a child who doesn’t know about the mechanics of popular culture in the world—let alone that the world exists. Ma does her best, however, and as she explains fame to the clearly-fascinated Jack, Donoghue sets up the dominant theme of the second half of the novel: the voyeurism and cannibalism of the media.
Themes
Soon, Jack hears Old Nick arrive. He hears Old Nick complain about the “ridiculous price[s]” at the store. Soon, Lamp shuts off and Jack begins counting creaks: tonight, there are 378. Afterwards, everything goes quiet. Jack has the sudden thought that maybe Ma is letting Old Nick “have some”—he gets angry, and turns on his jeep’s remote. He begins pressing buttons and soon hears his jeep “coming alive.”
Jack doesn’t understand the nature of Ma and Old Nick’s relationship, or what happens during their visits—but he’s beginning to develop a curiosity about them, and even resentments about the idea that Old Nick could be as close to Ma as Jack himself is.
Themes
Old Nick begins screaming and Lamp turns on. Someone forces Wardrobe open, and Jack hides under his blanket. He hears a disoriented Ma ask what’s happening. Old Nick starts shouting at Ma for “try[ing] something.” Ma apologizes profusely and begs Old Nick to come back to bed, but soon Jack hears the sound of Door beeping. Old Nick is gone.
This passage shows how distrustful Old Nick is of Ma—he seems to be waiting on tenterhooks for her to “try something” to get rid of him.
Themes
In the dark, Jack feels around for his remote, and realizes it has broken. He tells Ma, but she uses a “scary” voice to tell him to go back to sleep. Jack tries to make himself tired by counting his teeth over and over. Jack wishes Ma would get up and carry him into Bed with her. When she doesn’t, he gets himself up and joins her, but makes sure not to touch her under the covers.
Jack doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation with Old Nick—and just how much he could hurt and endanger himself and Ma by making just one wrong move.
Themes
