Book 1 project: Room yearbook

            The year book of Room features a description of all of Jack’s friends in his world. This is before his escape, so all of his friends happen to be objects and things (with the exception of Ma). The idea was made up, because it is both interesting and disturbing of how Jack talks of objects as if they are living beings.

            “Good night Room,” I say very quiet. “Good night, Lamp and Balloon.” (pg. 42) As you can see here, Jack wishes the lamp and balloon good night as if they are his friends: Bob and Tom for example. It is odd to think that this boy only knows one person in the entire world. It is all Jack has ever known, his Ma and things in room. Room is Jack’s world; the objects could be counted as countries/states/places in his world. As if you’re going on vacation and you told your neighbor: “hey watch the house, I’m going to California for the weekend”. To Jack that is walking probably 5 feet to go from the toilet to the bed. But the difference is he sees the objects not as states or places but as one of him like people. Towards the end of the book after they have escaped and left room, Jack asks his grandma if they can recover some of Room’s old objects (His friends!). In this part he finally gets his rug back, and is told by different people to throw it away or get rid of it. “I think of Rug, I run to get her out of the box and I drag her behind me. ‘Where will Rug go, beside the couch or beside our bed?’” (pg. 305) His “Ma” tells him its useless and to get rid of it. But for Jack getting rid of something he is so close to is difficult. It reminds me of the classic childhood story of the kid with the bad influence friend or something, and your mom telling you to stop hanging out with him because he is a bad influence. For Jack this is his situation but trying to get rid of Rug. It is a close friend that he has been through a lot with that he can’t just kick to the curb.

            Putting these fake scenarios/analogies into your head is one of my favorite parts of reading. Especially for this book, because it is absolutely mind boggling to try to think like Jack would. In that he only knows an 11x11 foot space and his world revolves around his Mom, Room, and the things in that Room. So in parts of the book where Jack says: “It makes my head hurt” after hearing something as simple as there are other people outside the tiny room frustrates me. Just because I am so used to the way things are in the world. For us or the Lehman it would be like someone telling us aliens really did live outside the universe and that they have seen them. We probably would not believe it, label them crazy, and have our head hurt too. That is why I think this attraction of something simple like a yearbook could really work for this book. Because it brings us to realize how minimal and small Jack’s world was. Of how much these objects meant to him, they are like his family. He was more excited to get his vomit filled, dungeon kept rug back then to see his Grandma and family. The idea of characterizing the objects into people is awesome. This year book for jack is like looking back on Room as if I will when I graduate from high school and point out different people I remember and loved.