Changes in Jake and Ma + Extra News!

Before I start, I would like to mention the fact that I have completed reading the fourth chapter of the book, After.

I want to talk about the major changes in Jack’s life. Because of this escape which just works by sheer luck, Jack’s life has been changed completely. I feel bad for him because all of a sudden he’s been taken out of one place and placed in an other which he can’t wrap his head around, and for good reasons. But all of this is made worse when Ma throws upon him all the things such as the baby monkeys story, the truth about Santa, the death of the Easter bunny, and the unemployed Tooth Fairy. This must be a psychological disaster for a five year old, whose entire life has been spent in a prison. But more than that, it’s also a disaster for Ma, and the paparazzi, the interview, and telling Jack all of this must have been very hard on her too.

The problem here is this all of a sudden change. Early on into the novel, I had stated in a class discussion that Ma should slowly start to open up to Jack things about the real world. Although she tries it to somewhat of a degree, it’s nowhere as close as she could have gotten. I understand the limitation on time which she had, however, if she would have told Jack the truth and slowly changed his aspect on the world while in Room, it might not have as much of a disaster as it is now. When the Allies defeated the Nazis and saw all the concentration camps, there method to approach it was the following: they gave little amounts of food and slowly started to give more to these hungry people. If they had just put all the food out which they could (which they did do at one point -- it didn’t help because all the captives just lashed out at the food and their bodies couldn’t take it, and they died) it would killed the captives. And this is what we are seeing here-- Jack is being exposed to this horrific change in literally a second and that is why he is not able to fit into society.

Another thing I noticed in this chapter was the change in Jack. He’s becoming much more of a bad boy -- some of it isn’t his fault but…still. For example, he realizes that he can chose to shower when he wants to. Also, Ma lets jack keep five toys but he takes an extra and doesn’t tell Ma. When we read it, it doesn’t seem like a big thing-- but this is pretty huge. Since Jack has lived in this small room without many things for his entire life, Ma would have immediately known if Jack had something extra. But now, since they are “Outside” he finally has “secrets”. There’s also that time when Jack has that “incident” with Bronwyn (now that’s not his fault, he’s never really been taught about those things yet). And last but not least, Jack steals a copy of Dylan the Digger (once again, this isn’t his fault, he thinks that it is his, and since only one of everything exists in his mind…). What I’m trying to get at is the fact that Jack has changed a lot in a short amount of time.

We obviously can’t forget Ma. Ma grew up in this society so she understands what the paparazzi are doing. But it’s too much for her. Let’s not forget that when she got into this mess, she was just a 19 year old girl (and she is still just in her late 20s). But in this span of time, she has gone through something which no human should have to go through. It was very selfish, disgusting, and inhumane on the part of Old Nick. But ever since she has come out, everyone is judging her (thanks to the paparazzi) for how she survived in Room and how she grew up Jake (particularly the breast-feeding). While I am doing that to some extent too, I recognize that she did what she thought was right at the time. But the way she is reacting right now is wrong. It seems that she has just lost all hope and succumed to temptation -- the temptation saying the ultimate screw you to life and bidding adieu to all the problems. I understand that she has been in a weird place psychologically as well as something that will taunt her the rest of her life. I understand that you can’t just forget these things. But, if she hadn’t given up hope for 7 YEARS, why give up hope now?  

In other news, I have completed my open-genre creative project. Having a run time of 9 minutes and 25 seconds, it contains over 600 different pieces I had to put together. After spending over 50 hours on it, I hope that I can amuse you all with it during finals! There will be a teaser attached to my next blogpost!

Friday, November 28th