EWRT 1C Class

Class 30

AGENDA Author Introduction:

Emma Donoghue Literary Style QHQ Discussion

Author Biography Emma Donoghue was born in Dublin in 1969. She is a writer

of contemporary and historical fiction whose novels include the bestselling Slammerkin, The Sealed Letter, Landing, Life Mask, Hood, and Stirfry.

She is the youngest of eight children; not surprisingly, she attended Catholic convent schools in Dublin. Her BA (1990) is in English and French from University College Dublin. She later moved to England to do her PhD at Cambridge (1997) on the concept of friendship between men and women in eighteenth-century English fiction.

From the age of 23, she has earned a living as a writer. She now lives in London, Ontario, with her partner and their two children.

Emma Donoghue on Room

I borrowed observations, jokes, kid grammar and whole dialogues from our son Finn, who was five while I was writing it. Room was also inspired by... ancient folk motifs of walled-up virgins who give birth (e.g. Rapunzel), often to heroes (e.g. Danaë and Perseus). 

Historical Context Room was also inspired by the Fritzl

family’s escape from their dungeon in Austria

One day in 1984, 18 year old Elisabeth Fritzl helped her all ready abusive father install a door in the basement. There he handcuffed her, drugged her, and kept her captive for 24 years, during which time over she bore seven children. The torture took place just feet from his wife Rosemarie, just a few floors down from his tenants; just down the street from the butcher, the baker and the post office.

Style The style is deceptively simple in

terms of word choice and sentence structure, yet it was likely quite complicated to write prose that both told the story and accurately reflected the speech of the narrator. To achieve this perspective, Donoghue studied both cases of children born of rape and autistic children.

The Narrator Her narrator, five year old Jack, has a

sophisticated vocabulary that reflects his above average education. His clumsy way of speaking gives readers the feel of a small child, but Donoghue manages to keep the coherence of an older person. The narration is informative, familiar, private, and intimate. Because of his living situation, of course, the young narrator’s perspective is very narrow.

Group Discussion QHQs

QHQs: Presents1. Question: Why do you think Emma Donoghue chose to write the

novel in a 1st person narrative from the perspective of the child.2. Q: How does the author’s use of personification of everyday objects

influence Jack’s relationship with his mother? 3. Q: What’s the importance of capitalizing the names of certain objects

in the room?4. Q: How much of the outside world is Jack aware of? And what role

does Ma play in this knowledge?5. Q: What does Jack consider fake and why?6. Q: How will Jack’s growing interest in his world and his increasing

intelligence change how his mother takes care of him as she continues to have conflicts with him while trying to protect him from the realities of their situation?

QHQs: Presents1. Q: How can psychoanalytic theory explain the effects of extreme isolation

on Jack and his mother? Do their coping mechanisms reveal their psychological disorders?

2. Q: The mother arguably shelters Jack more than she intends, by satiating his neediness with her constant presence. Is she, then, also affected by the fear of abandonment?

3. Q: Why does Jack have fear of monsters even though they are not real?4. Q Where can we see evidence of Jacks trauma? 5. Q: Is it possible that any subconscious trauma experienced by Jack may

cause him to deny any thoughts of the outside world’s existence, and that he doesn’t want to believe it exists?

6. Question: Do you think Jack is traumatized from the situation he is in, even though he does not fully understand that he and his Mom are in a traumatic situation.

7. Q: Does Jack only further his mother’s trauma or does he act as a coping mechanism in this imprisonment?

QHQs: Presents1. Q: Why does Ma constantly hide Jack from the outside world and

from Old Nick?2. Q: As Jack ages and inevitably becomes more of a presence in the

room, how is “Old Nick” going to respond to Jack’s existence when he begins to become an interference to him?

3. Q: How will old Nick and Jack’s mother respond when Jack begins to get older and understand more about the outside world and the relationship between old Nick and his mom?

4. Q what is the significance of old nick’s name.5. Q: If Old Nick is the father of Jack how does that complicate the

emotional attachment the mother has towards Jack, and does it go as far to change her relationship to Old Nick as well?

6. Q: Jack is clearly separated from Old Nick purposefully by Ma; in whose best interests does this separation serve?

Explain the dynamic between Old Nick and

Ma. Why does the narrator choose not to

tell us Old Nick’s story?

QHQs: Unlying1. What is the significance of the chapter title

“Unlying” and how is this presented in the opening passage (pg. 58 -60)?

2. Why does the author wait until the end of the 2nd chapter to tell us the back story behind why Jack and Ma are really trapped in the Room.

3. Why does Ma make Jack mute the television during the commercials?

4. Why does Jack count his teeth?

Trauma and Room Q: While they are in “Room,” we see

little evidence of the trauma they are suffering. Why is that? What kind of trauma might we expect to see? What kind of trauma might we expect to see? What kind do we see? Is it possible that “Old Nick” has not traumatized them?

QHQs: Dying Q: What does “Room” mean to Jack?

Why the author spends three chapters to get us to the climactic moment of this isolation? Isn’t escape the whole point of this story?

Q: “Dying”: Is Jack only traumatized after leaving room?

Q: Is there any evidence that Jack is traumatized before leaving room?

QHQs: After1. Q: Explore Ma’s trauma by investigating the before and

after effects of leaving the room.

2. Q: In Chapter 4, we see that Jack and Ma are struggling to adapt to “Outside”. Who is more traumatized, Jack or Ma?

3. Q: Why does Ma ignore the fact that Jack needs therapists?

4. Q: Is the fact that Ma still breastfeeds Jack a significant part of the story?

5. Q: What question from the interview, if any of them, caused Ma’s suicide attempt at the end of “After”? And what about that question caused her suicide?

Broader Questions1. Q: How do the religious symbols in Room by Emma Donoghue

reflect the environment in which Jack and his mother live?

2. Q: What do Jack’s instincts and thoughts about Room reveal about the human condition and our own psyche? His world is extremely limited, and we know that because we know what’s out there. But what do his inclinations towards interpreting Room reveal about our own failings and prejudices?

3. Q: In both “Room” and “Shawshank Redemption” we see the characters being imprisoned or confined in some way or form, how are Andy from “Shawshank Redemption” and Ma from “Room” similar?

4. Q: Will Jack suffer the same fate as the prisoners of Shawshank, unable to rehabilitate from their institution?

Homework Finish Room: Read “Living” Final Post #26: Choose One

QHQ Room Chapter 5, “Living” Focus on a close reading of a passage (or

passages) that you could use to do a critical reading through a theoretical lens. Consider New Critical, Feminist, Psychoanalytic, or Trauma Theories. You may use another theory with which you are familiar.

What role do you think the media play in the novel? How does the media contribute to the trauma.

Rita HRoom