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/
Wow this is actually even smaller than I imagined. I think this makes Ma seem even stronger as a character. She can keep a 5 year old active in a tiny room, and is able to carry on with her own life to the best of her abilities, even knowing there's more to life than watching TV in an 11x11 room. She has her moments where her depression overcomes her and she can't get up for the whole day, but for the most part, she's doing an incredible job raising her child.
ReplyDeleteI never thought about how cramped Room must be before reading your post. I can't believe that Room houses a kitchen, a table, a wardrobe, a bed, and a bathtub, among other things. It also amazes me that Ma and Jack have enough space to do PE games like track in their cramped living quarters.
ReplyDeleteI was especially thinking of the PE activities they do as I read this post, and it's crazy to think Jack's entire experience of physically moving his body is limited to such a small space and he can't run or jump or dance the way we think about it (and Ma especially can't). It'd be like if the only physical activity you could ever do was the shuttle run... I think the signs we've been picking up from Ma about the real world and hopeful escapes (still disguised as stories at this point) make sense to be happening at this point in time because after Jack's 5th birthday it's becoming clear they just can't fit in this room much longer.
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