In Room we’ve seen a lot of defamiliarization of things in the world. It’s got me thinking about things in real life and how I might see them in different ways. I got home from school today and my mom was working on a puzzle and my first thought was how weird that must seem to Jack. He would probably wonder why the picture was broken up in the first place and then wonder why people work so hard to put it back together for no reason.
Then I began talking to my mom and dad about Room (the book, not the location) and they wanted some examples of defamiliarization in the novel. I thought it would be fun to make them try and guess what certain descriptions actually mean, and thought it would probably be tricky since they aren’t accustomed to Jack’s language of things like when Jack is outside and says, “Up close the trees are giant giants, they’ve got like skin but knobblier when we stroke them. I find a triangularish thing the big of my nose” (Room 211). From the context, I know Jack is talking about a rock when he mentions the triangularish thing, but my parents had no clue what that meant. They didn’t even expect that he wouldn’t know what a rock is. It’s so hard to grasp the idea that someone wouldn’t know the things that we all grow up knowing like grass, rocks, or even wind. This disconnect that Jack has is really sad, but makes his narration super interesting.
I read Jack’s description of the vending machine to my parents (Room 159), and they both looked confused until I got to the part about chocolate bars and then they were able to guess vending machine. They were super confused about Jack’s description of the sunset where he calls the sun “God’s face” (Room 190). Earlier in the book when I first heard him mention God’s face I had to think about it a bit to understand what he meant, and I also wonder if he will learn to call it the sun eventually. The other description that Jack gave that stumped my parents was when he described the revolving door as an airlock to a spaceship (Room 197). I like that description that Jack gives a lot because I find it crazy/ super sad that he would know what a spaceship is (and even an airlock!) because he saw it on TV, but he wouldn’t know what a revolving door was.
There are endless examples of Jack’s defamiliarization of objects and idioms that people say (even the concept of manners) after he gets Outside. Reading the book from his perspective is so interesting because it lets us as readers look at the world a little differently and see how someone might interpret things that we think are totally normal in a completely strange way.
Personally, I found Jack's lack of familiarity with these basic parts of life to be one of the most interesting/tragic parts of Room, and I thought Emma Donoghue did a really outstanding job with coming up with these descriptions. Accurately writing from Jack's perspective a huge task, and she did great with it. I hope that, with time, Jack with learn about the outside world and gain familiarity with these items- while his unique perspective will be lost, I don't think he'll be able to fully re-integrate into society until he does so.
ReplyDeleteThis is a super interesting idea for a post and I kinda want to see how my family would interpret some things that Jack says. I agree with Nathalie that it's impressive that Donoghue took the time to think about the way that Jack might think about these things and take the time to make sure that his particular worldview is consistent. It is really sad though how little he knows about certain things, but that he understands the concept of a keypad to lock stuff up.
ReplyDeleteI think part of what makes the story so fun to read is that its like a game to understand the world from a perspective of a child. You out it so perfectly on the craziness/super sadness that Jack can't understand fundamentally known things. I really hope for his sake and Ma's that he is still like plastic so that he'll understand the meaning of that. For now he still has an entire world to discover.
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