How Jack sees the world
I’ve read Room up to 2/3 of the way through After. This post
isn’t going to go any further than that.
Throughout
After I’ve been seeing a lot of what we talked about on Friday: jamais vu, or
defamiliarization. But another interesting trend I’ve seen has been our defamiliarization
through Jack’s eyes to his world. As Jack
learns about our world in relation to his, we learn so much about his world in
relation to ours. By reacting with surprise to the new things that he finds in
the normal world, Jack creates a sort of retroactive surprise about Room in the
reader.
The
best example of this reaction is when Jack is changing to get ready for his
first day Outside. As he dons a fresh hospital gown, Ma throws his shirt in the
trash, calling it “a rag.” To Jack, who’s never known any different, his shirts
are nice, or at least decent. Since we only see the world through his unreliable
eyes, we only realize now how bad his clothes must have looked. This realization
is only amplified when Jack and Ma get new clothes and Jack describes Ma’s “jeans
that’s too tight”. I think she probably was wearing really loose-fitting cheap
pants, maybe a size large or maybe even men’s clothing. Now that we witness
Jack’s reaction to her normal, more high-quality clothing, we see that, for the
entire book so far, they’ve been wearing ill-fitting clothing. If I read
through Room again with this knowledge, some of what makes the book good will
be taken away by my foreknowledge of their situation.
There’s
a second trend that goes along with this pattern. In many cases, we see Jack
trying to keep count. For example, he keeps track of the fact that he has five
new books ever since he lost his five old ones, he asks for Ma’s help in
figuring how many friends he has, and his conscience is wrecked for several
pages by the fact that he took six toys, not five.
In Room, it was only natural for him
to know how much of everything he had, since he didn’t have that many things
and he treasured each individual object. But now, in the normal world, he finds
it increasingly hard to keep count. And by now, normal people have long given
up. Most Uni students probably take it for granted that we have essentially uncountable
numbers of things. For example, I couldn’t tell you how many shirts I own, and
I only have a rough shoe count. I couldn’t even start with all the people I
know or am friends with. But Jack is so intent on keeping track of exactly how many things he has that it
worries me that he will eventually not be able to keep count, and that he won’t
let go of his need to know these numbers. What’s going to happen to him then?
Jack definitely has a strong need to keep track of exactly how much he has. I also think that part of his feelings stem from the fact that for his whole life, he hasn't been able to waste a single thing. That's part of what makes throwing the shirt out so difficult for him- he doesn't realize he'll be able to get a new one. To Jack, new things are rare, and anything beyond the basics is a Sundaytreat. The scene where he doesn't realize he can take two lollipops is a great example of this. For Jack's whole life, they have been reliant solely on the generosity of Old Nick to get things like lollipops, so he had to take what was available. The notion that he can have all he wants, when he wants, is shocking. I do think he'll eventually be able to adjust. After all, as is noted in the book, he's still young and very plastic. While growing up in Room will certainly have lasting effects, After takes place immediately following their release- it makes sense that Jack won't have fully adapted just yet, and there's definitely hope for the future.
ReplyDeleteJack is sometimes an unreliable narrator. What is safe to him, like Room, is a nightmare to Ma and Outside is scary for him while it’s heaven for Ma. We do get a sense of the true reality when we get quotes from Ma. As for Jack’s unrelenting desire to count everything, I do think that is what is keeping in sane. In Room, he only had one of everything but in Outside, he can have multiples of everything. Counting is just a way to keep track and organize everything new for Jack.
ReplyDeleteJack's need to know how many things he has is definitely something I hadn't thought about as part of his transition to normal life. I think he'll probably grow out of that, and I believe the guilt about taking six toys was due more to him lying to Ma and not doing what she said rather than the wrong number. But right now, it's certainly an interesting dilemma in Jack's life. His small world is expanding, and the amount of things he owns is a pretty literal representation of that.
ReplyDeleteI think that Jack trying to keep track of everything is result of just how small Room is. There, everything was easily known, and in many cases, these things were singular. Now that he's out in the wider world, I think his drive to know the amount of everything will fade. There was a period of a couple of years where I tried to do everything equally on both sides of my body, like if I was tapping one knee a certain number of times, I felt like I had to tap the other knee the same number of times. I don't have this compulsion any more, so I think Jack will end up being mostly normal.
ReplyDeleteNice post. I agree w you but I've never seen it that way until now - retroactive defamiliarization is a really nice term for it. I'm going to write this comment with the trust that Mr. Mitchell won't roast me - I've been steadily watching the movie of Room every night up to where we read after I finish the readings in order to keep from reading ahead. Doing this has let me compare the two and one of the things the movie really is incapable of doing is presenting Room how Jack sees it to us. I honestly was picturing a brightly lit room with lots of colors and it was clean - seeing the movie really queued me into what it was actually like - which is probably a bad thing and is just an inherent flaw of the movie medium. Donaghue's narration is brilliant in this respect. We very slowly begin to understand what's going on and our picture changes with Jack's.
ReplyDeleteInteresting point – I didn’t notice how increasingly difficult it has been getting for Jack to keep count of all of his stuff. It only goes to show how difficult this transition must be – going from everything in the entire universe being contained in one room, where he could see, hear, feel, and understand everything to the real world sounds unimaginably strange and scary.
ReplyDeleteI think that the intense focus and attachment that Jack has to all of his very specific belongings is similar to his attachment to the strict schedule that they had in Room. He was used to things being exactly the way they are, always the same, which can be helpful with kids who are trying to establish a routine and familiarity. I think that this overload of new information that he's getting Outside now is really overwhelming for him and that trying to keep track is something that he is not only doing because he always has, but as a coping mechanism, a sense of organization and familiarity. My hope for Jack is that with the right kind of help, he won't have to use this crutch forever and that he will eventually be able to fully adjust to the world.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I knew that Jack was overwhelmed by the outside world and was trying to stuff as much information into his brain as possible in such a short period of time, but I didn't notice the significance of counting. Counting things can make them less overwhelming, so maybe that's a way to cope with stress and anxiety for Jack? Throughout the book we see him counting his teeth when something distressing is going on around him, so maybe there's something similar going on here?
ReplyDelete