Room by Emma Donoghue Plot Summary

Jack turns 5 years old as the story opens. He is a bright boy but has lived his
entire life in garden shed that he calls Room.

He believes this is the entire world and can't imagine that there is anything real
outside the Room. He lives there with his Ma. Their only outside contact is a
visitor who comes most nights that Jack knows as Old Nick. Old Nick rapes Ma
each night while Jack hides in the Wardrobe

Old Nick abducted Ma when she was 19 years old. She was a college student and
he tricked her by asking for help for his sick dog. He had apparently planned
the abduction for a long time because he had a garden shed converted into a
self-contained apartment in his back yard.

Ma tried to escape by digging out, but discovered that Old Nick had buried wire
under the shed. She tried to fight him once but he badly hurt her in retaliation
and she never tried again. She gave birth to a daughter who died immediately.
She gave birth to Jack when she was completely alone and she was his only
contact until they escaped.

When he turns 5, Ma realizes that their lives are in increasing danger. She
reveals to Jack that the world they see on television is real, and that Outside
really exists. Jack is frightened but finally agrees to go along with Ma's plan
She makes Old Nick believe that Jack is ill then she wraps Jack in a rug and
tells Old Nick that he died. Old Nick puts the rug in the back of his truck,
apparently with plans to bury Jack somewhere, but Jack escapes and finds help.

When the police arrive, one of the officers manages to figure out where he
came from and they rescue Ma as well.

There is a media frenzy following their escape. They are taken to the police
station then to a hospital where professionals gather forensic evidence. Then
they arrive at a mental health facility where they remain for the coming days.

They are there when Ma's mother, Grandma, arrives. There's a tearful reunion
and Ma discovers that her parents divorced after she disappeared.

Her mother has remarried and her father has moved to Australia. Ma's mother
is just relieved to have Ma home and she immediately opens her heart to Jack.
Ma's father sees Jack as a symbol of Ma's abduction and rape.

Jack discovers there are many new things to learn. He's smart in some ways
because Ma has taught him to read, count, and do math. However, he's socially
naïve and doesn't know how to conduct himself in even the most basic situations
with other people.
He is very attached to Ma and has trouble being away from her for even short
periods of time. One day, Ma drops into a bout of depression. It's happened
before and Jack refers to it as “Gone” because Ma doesn't respond to anything.

Jack goes for an outing with Ma's brother, Paul, and his family. When he
returns, he finds that Ma is seriously ill. He calls for help and nurses discover
that Ma has taken an overdose of pills, almost committing suicide.

It takes some time for her to recover and Jack stays with Grandma during
those weeks. He gradually begins to learn more about the Outside world and
begins to feel more at home, though he sometimes longs for the security he felt
in Room.

When Jack and Ma are reunited, Ma has secured an apartment for them to
share. They make one final visit to Room where Jack says good-bye to the space
that made up his entire world for the first 5 years of his life.
 Room by Emma Donoghue Main Character Study

Jack - Jack is five years old. He was born in Room and raised in Room. It
comes as quite a shock when he finds out that there is more to the world than
Room.

His Ma was kidnapped by Old Nick, the man who visits Room every night, and
she wants to get out. Ma uses Jack to concoct a plan to escape: he pretends
to be dead and escapes when Old Nick tries to bury him.

After that, Jack's world is different: it's the world the rest of us live in, but
it's a world he has never seen. He has to get used to hospitals, playgrounds,
shopping malls, and apartments, things most people take for granted. But for
Jack, it's all new. He grows a lot in the course of the first few weeks out of
Room, and he comes to realise that Room wasn't his home; it's just a place
where something happened. And he's ready to move on.
“I thought he was going to punish us too." I try to imagine. "Like if there were
two Rooms, if he put me in one and you in the other one." (2.430)

Ma - Ma is twenty-seven. We never learn her real name, and Jack only calls
her Ma. Kidnapped by Old Nick when she was nineteen, Ma spends eight years
inside Room. She has two children while in Room: the first, a daughter, who is
stillborn, and then Jack, who is five when Ma formulates a plan for them to
escape.

With Jack's help, they get away from Old Nick and back into the real world.
Ma has a difficult time adjusting. Her parents have divorced. Her friends
have mostly moved away. The media constantly hound her. After a failed
suicide attempt, Ma recuperates, and she eventually moves into an apartment
of her own with Jack.
"[The air]'s fresher. In the summer, it smells of cut grass, because we're in
his backyard. Sometimes I get a glimpse of shrubs and hedges." (2.668)

Old Nick - For the first two half of Room, the only characters we meet are
Jack, Ma, and Old Nick. Old Nick is the man who kidnapped Ma when she was
nineteen and locked her in a shed in his backyard. He rapes her regularly.
He brings her vitamins and food. When Ma's escape plan works, and Jack
escapes, Old Nick gets caught and will probably spend at least twenty-five
years in jail.

We never learn his real name. Jack calls him Old Nick because of something
he saw on TV, event though "He doesn't look like the TV guy with a beard and
horns and stuff" (1.105). (This insinuates that Jack is calling him the devil)

Old Nick clearly has control issues and gets mad if he can't find what Ma asks
for, and he manipulates her in any way he can, for example by getting Jack
presents or by turning off the power in Room.

It's weird to realise that Jack is Old Nick's son, because Old Nick doesn't
seem to care for him at all. Since he's really bad at taking medical care of
Jack, the only reason Jack is still alive is because Ma takes such good care of
him.
"Should have reminded me, I could have brought him something. What's he
now, four?" (1.414)

Grandma - Grandma is Ma's (adopted) mother. She believed her daughter

had run away, but she always held out hope that she was still alive. During the
seven years Ma was gone, Grandma turned Ma's room into a gym, divorced, and
remarried. She's happy Ma is back, but it's not like they can just pick up
where they left off. When Ma overdoses, Grandma takes care of Jack. It's
frustrating for her, but she finds a good balance between letting Jack be
himself and teaching him the way the world works.

Some of the lessons Grandma teaches Jack are part of growing up, like when
she won't bathe with him naked the way Ma does. But some of the lessons are
a little more difficult. For example, when Jack hugs a boy he just met on the
playground and Grandma tells him "we save our hugs for people we love"
(5.575), the implication being that you can't love someone you just met. But
the world needs more love, the kind of love Jack has to give.

Grandma is perhaps being a little over-vigilant in this case. Jack has a habit of
being very trusting of strangers, and he does almost go off with two women at
the mall at one point. The lesson here is that it's hard to give love when we
live in a world of fear, but Grandma is doing the best she can.

Grandpa - Ma's dad, whom we only know as Grandpa, has a more difficult time
dealing with his daughter's return than any of her other family members have.
Actually, it's not her return that bothers her: it's Jack. When he sees Jack,
Grandpa says, "I can't be in the same room. It makes me shudder" (4.1124).

Grandpa can't get past the fact that Jack exists because his daughter was
kidnapped and raped. Jack is a product of rape, but his Ma doesn't love him
any less. She prefers to think of Jack as a gift from God rather than the
result of tragedy and abuse. But Grandpa can't look past that. We only see
him for a couple of pages, and we're not sure if he'll never know how great his
grandson is, despite his horrific origins.