Ma's suicide attempt and her re-introduction to normalcy

"Room" is narrated from Jack's perspective, making it hard to see Ma's true feelings throughout this difficult transition. We tend to focus on Jack's transition to the world, as it seems hardest for him, since he's never seen anything outside of Room. But looking deeper into Ma's struggles, it becomes clear how hard the transition is actually hitting Ma.
We first see Ma struggling during the interview. With demeaning and rude questions being thrown at her by the big haired interviewer, and Ma's credibility as a parent being thrown into question, it was seemingly natural for her to be "gone" the next day. Ma's parenting abilities were what kept her literally alive in Room. She didn't take her life because she had to be a good mother to Jack. Though this isn't the only thing that leads to her overdose, it is a cause and effect. Ma's suicide attempt shows her struggle, though we had been focusing on Jack's.
As we see Ma come back after her suicide attempt and Jack's week alone come to an end, we get the scene of them moving into the Independent Living. The scenes where Jack has rug, and Ma tolerates it shows strength on her part.
But what really shows Ma's strength is the fact that she is willing to go back to Room, the place where so many awful things happened to her, just to let Jack have closure. We see her struggling when she vomits outside the shed, and we can only imagine how she feels seeing her miscarriages child's grave. But the fact that she perseveres through this mental pain, shows her heroism.

Why we should cut Jack some slack

At points in this section, I have admittedly become increasingly annoyed with Jack. His reactions to Ma’s stories of Outside, in particular, seem incredibly disrespectful and rude. But at the same time, I have to remind myself that Jack is just a five year old boy trying to wrap his head around the world. Part of me is just like, “listen to Ma!!”, but the other part of me knows he is, and knows he’s incredibly confused and overwhelmed.

Looking at this from Ma’s perspective though, it must be so hard for her to not have anyone to talk to about her past life for seven years. And now she does, as she tries to explain to Jack her childhood, but he’s in disbelief, trying to get her to stop, and telling her she’s silly, etc. It’s a natural response to overwhelming situations, to shut them down, but looking at how Ma must feel definitely makes Jack seem more irritating.

I’ve been thinking about why we all seem to find some of Jack’s mannerisms irritating. I have come to the conclusion that it’s because of his selfishness. As a five year old, that selfishness is usually manifested in different ways that a strong mother-son bond. But for Jack, he doesn’t really have anything else to cling to. At times, I forget Jack is so young, simply because he’s our narrator. Being only five years old, it’s natural for him to be a bit selfish and act young, because he is. I just wish at some points he’d just listen, and stop talking, because some of the things he says must really hurt Ma, though of course he doesn’t realize this.

Visualizing Room

Emma Donoghue’s “Room” is a chilling picture. An 11x11 space, housing two people, a kitchen, a bed, and a table, with the only light source being a skylight. Though I know that’s small, I still couldn’t picture the size.

So on Saturday, I set out to figure out exactly how Room would feel. I used our tape measure to see how my own bedroom would measure up to Room. My walls were about 16 by 20. By my calculations I could fit about 2.6 Rooms inside my own bedroom.

Though this idea was already insane, I still wanted to find a room that better fit the dimensions of the actual Room from the book. So I went to our guest room. Our guest room is connected to the separate office, so the actual bedroom is pretty small. So I measured the walls. 11 by 13. Pretty close.

But then I tried to picture living in this singular room. I tried to imagine fitting not only a bed, which already felt a tad cramped, but then a kitchen and a dining room table. Once I made space for all the amenities of Room, I realized just how cramped Ma must feel.

Measuring Room gave me a newfound respect for Ma. Though Ma could just lay in bed all day and feel claustrophobic and depressed, she still remains so patient with Jack. Ma’s ability to entertain a 5 year old in an 11 by 11 room is actually incredible.

There’s a cool online “Room” if you too want to visualize it (without actually spending an hour measuring your own house): http://www.roomthebook.com/inside/

So Smithy's not fat anymore...

Should this change the way we see him? Was that McLarty's intention? It seems unlikely that his extreme weight loss and "quest" were a coincidental addition to the plot. Though he is riding 2,970 miles, the weight loss didn't necessarily need to happen. Or be spotlighted. And yet it is.

The fact that two large milestones are so coincidental seem to me to be no accident. I think that McLarty used the weight loss as a more physical representation of the change that Smithy is going through on his journey.

Throughout his 2,970 mile ride from East Providence, Rhode Island, to Los Angeles, CA, he changes significantly. Not just in terms of his size. Smithy has begun to eat (and enjoy) healthy foods again. He's jumped back into reading. He's discovered new things about himself (that he enjoys talking to people, that he loves Norma, etc). And all of these things would not have happened if he stayed at his riveting job at the toy factory.

These huge changes are hard to convey in writing. I'm actually having trouble describing the changes I see in Smithy. And yet, they're still there. Just because I can't put them into words doesn't change that. Smithy's personality, tendencies, emotions, ideas, ethics, morals, and so much more have changed over this journey.

Those are kind of hard things to describe. So why not put those huge changes into something physical? McLarty uses Smithy's weight loss to "personify" the changes we see in other areas of his life. As Smithy grows as a person, we see his waistline shrinking. This direct correlation makes the other larger changes easier to see and observe.