A World Between Four Walls: ROOM by Emma Donoghue

When I was a senior in high school, one of our Accelerated English Class assignments was a "creative" book report.  I chose To Kill a Mockingbird.  Probably because of play rehearsals, I'd waited until the last minute to complete the assignment.  I madly searched through my parents' magazines for pictures to illustrate various quotations from the book.  Everything was clicking -- no matter where I turned, I found drawings and photos that perfectly illustrated my chosen quotes, or found a picture that triggered a quote to accompany it.  I capped the project by writing a summary of the book in free verse, from Scout's point of view, in her voice.  I became Scout as I wrote, and when I finished, returned to the world dazed. 

I got an A+ on that paper:  "Originality A+, Quality A+, Use of Source A+", and  Miss Bischoff's comments included this one:  "I wish everyone I know could see it!" At the bottom of the page where Scout's "poem" ended she wrote, "This gives me goose pimples, it's so good!" (all exclamations hers).  My dad, too, thought it was great and offered me $50 for it.  At the time, that was a heck of a lot of money to me, but I wanted to keep it for myself.

I thought of that project all these years later as I read Emma Donoghue's Room.  The story is told from the point of view of a five-year-old child who has known only the four walls of one room his entire life.  Within those walls, however, his mother has created a world that, to him, is full of wonders.  Any unhappiness he suffers is minor.  He looks forward to small pleasures with eagerness.  He's smart, curious, creative.

As I read, I thought back to the time when I wrote my poem and created my project, remembering how possessed I felt at the time.  I was thinking -- Emma Donoghue must have felt the same, but she sustained that creative possession through 321 pages without faltering.  How did she do it?  She must have dreamed the book when she wasn't awake writing it.  She must have constantly had Jack in her head.  She didn't let go of him, and he held onto her all the way through this very disturbing, haunting tale.

Here's a quote that gives the reader plenty to ponder (and believe me, you'll have this book stuck in your head long after you put it down):

"In Room we knowed what everything was called but in the world there's so much, persons don't even know the names." (p. 267). 

I don't know the names of half the plants and birds in my little part of the world here in Pennsylvania.  Think of all we don't know, of all that's left to learn, enough in our own little worlds to carry us through a lifetime.