UNIVERSITY OF MONTENEGRO

The Faculty of Philology

English Department

Diploma Paper:

Developmental Challenges in Emma Donoghue’s Novel Room

Supervisor: Student:

Dr. Janko Andrijašević Nikolina Bečanović 1/16

Nikšić, 2017
 Table of Contents

1. Intorduction___________________________________________________2
2. Emma Donoghue’s Biography and Room____________________________3
3. Developmental Psychology and Theories of Development_______________5

3.1. Freud’s Psychosexual Theory of Development_______________5

3.2. Erik Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development__________8

3.3. Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development___________________10

3.3.1. Piaget’s Stages of Development___________________11

4. Jack’s Abnormal Normality_______________________________________13

4.1. Jack’s Emotional Vulnerabilities in Room and the Outside_____14

4.2. Social Isolation in Room and Its Impact on Jack’s Social Life___16

4.3. The Influence of the Confinement on Jack’s Cognitive Abilities_18

5. Conclusion____________________________________________________20
6. Works Cited___________________________________________________22

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 1. Introduction

In this paper, we will examine three grand theories of child development and the research
will be used to find, describe and explain possible developmental challenges in Emma Donoghue’s
novel Room. Thus, the first part of this study consists of a short overview of Donoghue’s literary
achievements and of what happens in Room. The second part is a review of Freud’s psychosexual
theory of development, Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development, and Piaget’s theory of
cognitive development whose aim is to call into question emotional, social and cognitive
challenges of the five-year-old protagonist of the novel. The collected information will be
described and analyzed in the latter part of this paper which will furthermore offer proper examples
and illustrate possible developmental problems implied in the novel. Although there are two
possible characters with such difficulties, our focus will be on the boy Jack rather than on his
mother. Also, one of the possible limitations could be the fact that there are no primary sources for
this type of research, which is why we have chosen three developmental theories to support and
complement our opinions. The study of human development is a rich study area which focuses on
describing and explaining how humans grow, behave and change. In order to understand one’s
development, numerous theories have emerged. The first developmental theory observed in this
paper is Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic sexual drive theory whose central element is
psychosexual development which suggests that one’s behavior is determined by certain parts of
one’s body. While Freud believes that experiences and unconscious desires influence child’s
behavior and that human development is sexually driven, Erik Erikson proposes his eight stages
of man (one’s social development) and emphasizes the role of culture and society in developing
sense of one’s identity. Similarly to Erikson, Swiss psychologist, Jean Piaget describes how
humans adapt to their environment and how that very adaptation to the environment becomes
crucial for humans’ behavior and for the construction of their thinking processes

In the end, all of the conclusions should be interpreted with caution due to the fact that
none of us can with certainty predict changes or problems in one’s future thoughts, reasoning or
behavior.

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 2. Emma Donoghue’s Biography and Room

Emma Donoghue, born on October 24, 1969, is an Irish-Canadian novelist, short-story

writer, playwright and literary historian. Due to being born in an educated Catholic family and by
virtue of her upbringing and training, Donoghue was destined for a literary career. She spent her
early years of training at Catholic convent schools in Dublin and later on she attended University
College Dublin, where in 1990 she earned a first-class honors BA in English and French. In 1997,
she got a Ph.D. in English from Cambridge University, and her thesis dealt with the theme of
friendship between men and women in eighteenth-century English fiction. Donoghue is often
described as “an interesting case of intersecting national identities” (Gonzalez 99) and though she
has been an official resident of Ontario Canada, she considers herself an Irish writer. Despite the
fact that her best work is inspired by her knowledge of history and literature of seventeenth and
eighteenth century Ireland and England, Donoghue is often regarded as a popular lesbian writer.
Some of the most popular themes of her work undoubtedly include surrealism, fantasy, humor,
passion between women and her focus on the lesbian material (Gonzalez 98-99).

In 2010, Donoghue’s big literary hit of the year Room was released and shortlisted for Man
Booker Prize and Orange Prize. This is a story inspired by Josef Fritzl’s incarceration of his
daughter Elisabeth but according to the writer “to say that Room is based on Fritzl’s case is too
strong” (Ue Tom Journal of Gender Studies) and it is from his case that Donoghue takes “the basic
notion of an imprisoned woman raising her rapist’s child as happily as possible” (Ue Tom Journal
of Gender Studies). Moreover, the writer admits that she deliberately sets Room in America in a
garden shed in order to make “Ma’s story unlike Elizabeth Fritzl’s” (Ue Tom Journal of Gender
Studies). However, after the novel was written, Jaycee Dugard, a woman from California who was
kidnapped at the age of 11 and then raped, impregnated and captivated for almost 18 years by a
convicted rapist Phillip Garrido, was discovered with her two daughters in America, in a garden
shed (biography.com). This case, Donoghue explains, shows how “sometimes it is the life that
imitates art” (Ue Tom Journal of Gender Studies).

Donoghue’s novel is a breathtaking and emotionally compelling story of a 5-year-old boy

Jack who lives with his “Ma” in a single room which besides Ma, presents his only reality since
his birth. Despite numerous limitations and restrictions, Ma has created a pleasant, happy and
enjoyable life for her son in Room which seems to be the only real and imaginable place for a little

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boy. Shaken, terrified and broken because of their destiny, Ma decides to reveal her son the
beautiful but still horrific truth that there is “the whole world out there” (Donoghue 107) and thus,
she does the “unlying” by trying to explain to the little boy that Room companions such as Jeep,
Remote, Rug, Blanket, Bed are not his real friends but tragic limitations of their “life in the book”
which Old Nick, the rapist, and Jack’s father, “won’t let anybody else read it” (Donoghue 112).
After years of thinking and trying to escape from the dreadful Room, she realizes that Jack is the
one with “superpowers” and that he would have to make a sacrifice in order to free them. She was
successful in turning the shed into a cozy little abode for her son, but this place remains a jail for
her, and as a result she forces Jack to follow her “stinky dumb plan” ( Donoghue 151) which would
save them and which would introduce her child to a whole new world of opportunities. Jack does
all of this and saves both Ma and himself. The second part of the novel narrates “what happens
next” and the writer indicates that no one left Room’s door without scars and wounds. Moreover,
in coming years those wounds would definitely hurt a lot, but it is “hurting that means getting
better” (Donoghue 215).

It is a fact that Donoghue’s Room, narrated from a five-year-old boy perspective, raises
numerous questions about ethical, philosophical, psychological issues and as such does not offer
clear answers. The writer herself admitted that if she were in a business of giving answers she
would have written an advice column, not a novel (Ue Tom Journal of Gender Studies).

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 3. Developmental Psychology and Theories of Development

Developmental psychology is the study of human development over the entire life span,
from conception to death, and its aim is not only to systematize and interpret developmental
changes but also to explain them and the various factors that influence development (Louw 3).
Moreover, it is “the discipline that attempts to describe and explain changes that occur over time
in the thought, behavior, reasoning, and functioning of a person due to biological, individual and
environmental influences" (Slater and Bremner 5). According to Dap Louw, South African master
of Psychology and doctor of Philosophy in Psychology, the main object of study in this area is the
developing person as a whole and more, he believes that humans “are different and different
aspects develop in different ways, at different tempos and at different stages” (9) which is why it
is important to make a distinction between different areas of development. For example, physical
development “includes the growth of the body and organs, as well as changes in internal structure
and functioning of the body (which is usually called physiological development)” (10) whereas
cognitive development refers to “how we acquire information about the world and how we
represent and transform information as knowledge, and how we store, retrieve and use that
knowledge to direct our behavior” (Louw 10).

3.1. Freud’s Psychosexual Theory of Development

According to Tomy Philip, “the theory of psychosexual development, also known as the
theory of libidinal development, is one of the earliest theories that explain how personality
develops in human beings” (180). This theory depicts the strong dependence between child’s
growth and different areas of the human body by passing through a series of psychosexual stages
in which different erogenous zones are important. Moreover, the theory explains the
developmental aspects of personality and the highly valuable role of the early experiences during
infancy and childhood in forming the basic character structure of an adult. In his work
Psychosexual Development: Freudian Concept, Dr. Tomy Philip from the University of Delhi
explains those “dynamically differentiated developmental stages” which play an in important role
in the etiology of psychological problems including mental disorders. He highlights Sigmund
Freud’s beliefs that the symptoms of mental problems during adulthood are related to frustrations
to erotic instinct and that these most often occur in the first year of life and then continue through

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the whole childhood stage (180-181). According to psychosexual theory, an individual’s life span
is divided into oral, anal, phallic, latent and genital stages and the first three of these are so called
pregenital stages because the source of physical energy for the drives are respectively the mouth,
the anus and the male sexual organ (Louw 45).

The oral stage: As Louw explained in Human Development, during this very stage that
covers the first year of life, “the mouth is the erogenous zone or otherwise, the source of sexual
energy” (45) as the child is sucking mother’s breast which not only satisfies its need for nutrition
but oral sexual drive, as well. By this act of seeking and getting pleasurable feelings, a mother
becomes the first love object for a child (Philip 183). When teeth erupt, the mouth is used for
chewing and biting and when mother “punishes” the baby for such biting the baby makes its first
contact with social rules while “the punishment initiates the first vague basic development of the
ego and the superego” (Louw 45). Moreover, by this withdrawal of pleasure, the first defense
mechanism is formed – displacement. This dissatisfaction is often replaced by finding some other
sucking objects such as a thumb, for instance, but this may become prohibited by society and the
child may become frustrated again. If this is the case, it may occur that the child remains fixated
at this stage which may lead to the child showing oral sexual behavior in the next stages of
development. Louw concluded that mothers’ feeding plays a major role in one’s development of
personality and mentioned some of the characteristics, given by Salvatore Maddi, psychologist
who obtained his doctorate in clinical psychology from Harvard University, that are created in this
period. Those characteristics are optimism, pessimism, trust, mistrust, passivity and jealousy (45).

The anal stage: “The anus becomes the major erogenous zone by the end of one’s first
year”(Louw 46). This stage roughly occurs during the second and third year and it represents the
time when children start learning to control their excretions. This means that the young ones derive
sexual pleasure from excretory functions and they also learn that they can behave in a way that
gets reactions from society (Louw 46). Learning how to use “toilet” removes discomfort and
produces emotions of relief because the child has to learn “to postpone the pleasure that comes
from relieving anal tensions” (Philip 184) and by learning more social norms “the development of
the super ego is taken a step further” (Louw 46). Maddi explained that Freud’s research showed
that parents do have a crucial role at this stage because it is this period that is connected with
certain qualities such as neatness, cleanliness, thrift, punctuality and accuracy (qtd. in Louw 46).

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 The phallic stage: By the end of the third year child’s sexual organ becomes the major
erogenous zone and it is now when boys and girls start developing differently. Furthermore, those
“new” fantasies and wishes are different because a boy focuses his sexual desires on his mother
whereas a girl on her father (Louw 46). The boy develops an Oedipus complex which consists of
“a sexual attachment for the parent of the opposite sex while feeling hostile towards the parent of
the same sex” (Philip 185). This means that a boy may feel jealousy towards his father but he may
still fear and respect him. Philip explains that a boy “imagines that a father is going to harm him”
and is concerned with “what the father may do with his genital organs” and it is this fear of
castration that helps a boy to resolve his Oedipus complex (185). When a girl desires to possess
her father and develops increasing animosity towards her mother we talk about Electra complex.
A girl becomes aware that she is “less equipped” than a boy and thus holds her mother responsible
for this (Philip 185). The resolution of this complex happens when a girl becomes able to recognize
“the realistic barriers” and, according to Freud, these differences in resolution of these two
complexes are the basis for many differences between two sexes (Philip 185).

Latency Stage: “During the period about 5 or 6 years the child is not consciously concerned
with sexual matters and sexual urges are hidden through this stage” (Philip 185). The child’s
interest turns outward and they learn how to behave and act in society. This means that the child
tries and wants to excel and improve, thus, what is supposed to be “modeled” during this period is
a sense of competence (Philip 185).

Genital Stage: This stage begins with adolescence and includes sexual attraction,
socialization, group activities, preparations for marrying and having a family. This means that from
“a pleasure seeking, self-loving infant the world gets a reality orientated and socialized adult”
(Philip187).

Fixation: In Freudian Concept, the term fixation is defined as “the persistent attachment of
the sexual instinct to a particular phase of pregenital development which can happen in any of the
psychosexual developmental stages except the last one” (Philip187). Freud points out that fixation
affects personality development and those behavioral manifestations of fixation may vary
depending on the stage of development in which fixation takes place (qtd. in Philip 187).

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 3.2. Erik Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development

According to Dr. George Boeree, a professor of psychology, Erik Erikson is an ego-

psychologist who accepts Freud’s ideas and basic concepts but is more concerned with society and
culture. Erikson’s theory explains that human development functions by the epigenetic principle,
“through a predetermined unfolding of our personalities in eight stages” (Boeree 6│17). Each stage
has a certain developmental task and two opposing terms representing the challenges that one faces
at a particular age. Moreover, each stage has its optimal time and if every stage is managed
properly, one gains maturity and psychosocial strength that helps guide them through life.
However, these phases can also result in maladaptation which may compromise one’s future
development (Boeree 6│17).

Trust versus Mistrust: “For the basic component of a healthy personality I nominate a sense
of basic trust which I think is an attitude toward oneself and the world derived from the experiences
of the first year of life” (Erikson 57). Thus, “during infancy, the major developmental crisis is
between becoming trusting and mistrusting person (Muuss et al. 47). The necessary healthy
experience comes from one’s mother and her love and care and the baby “lives through and loves
with his mouth” (Erikson 58). During this stage child experiences living in a secure world where
his needs are satisfied (Erikson 61) and therefore, “the healthy outcome of this stage is the ability
to trust others, trust oneself and thus, to have hope” (Muss et al. 48). When a trusting infant is
raised, in future, confidence, optimism, and sense of security are easier to achieve and thus,
“mutual recognition and mutual trustworthiness are the earliest undifferentiated experiences of
what will later become a sense of identity” (Muuss et al. 48). However, the absence of trust
experience in this stage may lead to “identity confusion in adolescence” (Muuss et al. 48).

Autonomy versus Shame and Doubt: According to Erikson, the whole second stage, which
comes between the ages of 18 months and 3 years, is “a battle for autonomy” (70) and its purpose
is to produce “an autonomous, creative individual or a dependent, inhibited and shameful
individual filled with self-doubt” (Muss et al. 48). However, a sense of shame is the negative
outcome of this stage or the notion when “one is visible and not ready to be visible”, “an impulse
to bury one’s face, or to sink, right then and there, into the ground” (Erikson 71).

Initiative versus Guilt: “Having found a firm solution of his problem of autonomy, a child
of four and five is faced with the next step - finding what kind of person he is going to be” (Erikson

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78). A child learns to “move around more freely and violently”, his sense of language becomes
more perfect and he asks various questions about unknown objects and things while expanding his
imagination (Erikson 78). This is a stage of sexual curiosity but a stage in which conscience
becomes firmly established as well. One becomes dependent and feels ashamed “when found out
but also afraid of being found out” (Erikson 84). Erikson explains that one may feel guilty “even
for mere thoughts and deeds which nobody has watched” (84). As a dystonic outcome, a child may
become obsessed with fears, guilt and he may be over-dependent on adults (Muuss et al. 50).

Industry versus Inferiority: As stated by Erikson, the period between school entry and
puberty is when child “wants to get busy with something and with others” (87). Children acquire
much fundamental knowledge and become proud of their achievements which is why this stage is
described as “apprenticeship of life” (Muuss et al. 50). A child learns to need and want
accomplishment, develops the sense of duty, feeling of workmanship and an attitude of working
to do well. If unfortunately, one fails to achieve the notion of success and recognition, they can
develop a sense of “inadequacy and inferiority” (Muuss et al. 51).

Identity versus Identity Diffusion: During adolescence, a child is supposed to establish a

sense of personal identity in order to avoid identity diffusion and confusion (Muuss et al. 51).
Erikson explains that one is learning “effective steps towards future while this is followed by
developing a defined personality within a social reality which one understands” (95). Adolescents
who fail to find their identities experience self-doubt, role confusion, and diffusion, they become
self-destructive and morbidly preoccupied with the opinions of others (Muuss et al. 54).

Intimacy and Distantiation versus Self-Absorption: As stated by Erikson, in this stage one
works and studies for a specified career, socializes with the other sex and makes plans, marries
and starts a family of his own. Note that only when a reasonable sense of identity is established,
real intimacy with opposite sex is possible (Erikson 101). If people do not “succeed” in this period,
they are likely to experience isolation, loneliness, distantiation and they may seek for promiscuity
without intimacy, sex without love and relationships without emotional stability (Muuss et al. 55),
which may lead to “the readiness to repudiate and isolate” (Erikson 101).

Generativity versus Stagnation: “Generativity is primarily the interest in establishing and

guiding the next generation” (Erikson 103). Moreover, it is “a stage of growth of the healthy
personality” and those who do not develop this notion refer to themselves as if “they were their

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own and only child” (103). If the failure occurs, one faces stagnation or “a routine repetition in
vocational activities and stereotypical repetition in social relationships” (Muuss et al. 56).
Therefore, those that suffer stagnation are egoistic, self-absorbed, and self-indulgent (Muuss et al.
56).

Integrity versus Despair: This very stage begins when one accepts the fact that he is
responsible for his own life and becomes “the originator of others and generator of things and
ideas” (Erikson 104). According to Erikson, the lack of integration brings despair or the feeling
that life is too short for the attempt to try to start another one and as such is often hidden behind
disgust, a misanthropy or a chronic contemptuous displeasure with particular institutions and
people (Erikson 105).

To conclude, Erikson believed that no one can fool children. Human childhood, full of grave
anxieties, is long and gives people enough time to accept child’s personality The world, says
Erikson, must stop destroying child’s dependence and children must not be the victims of adults’
anxieties cause “if we will only learn to let live, the plan for growth is all there” (Erikson 107).

3.3. Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

According to Piaget, “intelligence is an adaptation” and in order to relate this term to life
in general, it is essential to find and state the relation between the organism and the environment
(Piaget 3). Piaget points out that “the organism adapts itself by materially constructing new forms
to fit them into those of the universe, whereas intelligence extends this creation by constructing
mentally structures which can be applied to those of the environment” (4). Therefore, the process
of learning means interacting and experimenting with the environment and to learn means to make
a sense of the world (Piaget 3). Psychological structures used to describe and explain children’s
development are called schemas or “the cognitive or mental structures by which individuals
intellectually adapt to and organize the environment” (Wadsworth 14). While expounding Piaget’s
theory, Wadsworth explains that schemata1 are not physical objects, but psychological structures
and processes instead, that adapt and change with mental development (14). He furthermore

1
The plural form of Piaget’s term “schema”

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clarifies that a child has few schemata and that these gradually become more general and more
“adult” (16). Due to the fact that schemata are cognitive structures and that the adults’ concepts
are different from those of children, they certainly do change. Two processes responsible for the
change are assimilation and accommodation (Wadsworth 16). Assimilation is “the cognitive
process by which a person integrates new perceptual, motor, or conceptual matter into existing
schemata or pattern of behavior” (Wadsworth 17). This means that a child tries to fit and classify
those new things and events (new stimulus) into the existing schemata. Accommodation, on the
other side, is the creation of new schemata or the modification of an old one (17). To clarify, it is
when a child is confronted with a new stimulus which cannot be assimilated because it does not
fit in any schemata. When this happens a child can either create a new schema to fit a stimulus into
or modify the existing one. It is important to highlight that during assimilation, a person’s stimuli
are forced to fit the personality structure whereas in accommodation the person has to change his
schema to fit the new stimuli (Wadsworth 18).

Equal importance is given to both of these processes, and the state of balance between them
is called equilibrium. If an equilibrium did not exist and if, by chance, one always assimilated
stimuli but did not accommodate, they would have a very few large schemata and would believe
many things to be similar. Then again, if one would just accommodate and not assimilate, he would
understand things to be different. When a child is ready for new learning but fails to meet
environmental challenges and experiences the cognitive discomfort, it is a state of imbalance
between assimilation and accommodation, called disequilibrium (Wadsworth 19).

3.3.1. Piaget’s Stages of Development

Piaget proposed four stages of children cognitive development: the sensorimotor stage, the
pre-operational stage, the concrete operational stage and the formal operational stage.

The period from birth to about 2 years is called the sensorimotor period and during this
stage, most of the schemes are organizations of physical action patterns. Piaget divided this stage
into 6 sub stages and argued that the infant and then the toddler during this period is constructing
a practical understanding of space, time, causality and objects, which is why the construction of
reality is a central outcome of the stage. He explained that the earliest schemes are based on

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reflexes such as sucking, grasping and looking. A month after birth those primary reactions
become organized schemes- habits, the children become curious on familiar surroundings and they
start to relate the new experience to the familiar one. As they reach months three and four, babies’
environment interests are more extended, they learn how to coordinate and combine schemes and
their behavior becomes more goal oriented. Another important feature of the sensorimotor stage is
the concept of object permanence. This means that for instance, though a child cannot see a certain
object, it is still aware that the object exists. When an infant reaches stage 5 (12-18 months) they
become intrinsically motivated without the encouragement of adults. After 18 months of birth
symbolic thought begins, and this way of thinking, according to Piaget, does not require language,
but non-linguistics symbols instead (qtd. in Fleming 4- 13 – 4-16).

During the pre-operational stage, a child is able to form symbols, mental representations
of ideas and events even though these are not well organized yet. Important features of the stage
are semiotic functions because now, children realize that a visual image or a signifier comes to
stand for a certain object. There are two kinds of signifiers – symbols and signs. While signs are
images that do not represent the object being conceived, symbols have some lingering quality.
Also, in the pre-operational stage egocentricity shows up and children report from their own
perspective. Children’s thinking is semi-logical, they do not know about generalizing, deductive
reasoning and are engaged in a so called “collective monologue” instead in a real dialogue
(Fleming 4-17 – 4-19).

The concrete operational stage comes between ages of seven and eleven and represents the
time when one develops the ability to apply logical thought to concrete problems in present. This
means that during this stage children begin to think logically and they begin using inductive logic
from specific information to a general principle (Wadsworth 26).

The formal operational stage refers to the greatest level of development (11-15 years) as
the child becomes capable of applying logical reasoning to all classes of problems. Thus, children
use deductive reasoning and become capable of seeing multiple potentials to problems
(Wadsworth 26).

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 4. Jack’s Abnormal Normality

Jack, a young American boy, lives with his Ma. He turns five on the morning of his long-
anticipated birthday and reaches “a magical age”. Jack is thrilled and excited because of this special
day and his Ma spoils him with a proper cake, some cookies, a celebration, and there are many
friends and family coming over. He blows the candles while his loving mother records all of it and
later on, they go out and spend the rest of his birthday in a game room, on the playground or in a
restaurant. This would have been a typical birthday scenario for many children. However, none of
this happens when Jack turns five. It does not happen because Jack is a five-year-old boy who lives
isolated in a11ft by 11ft room, a kid who has been trapped in the same place since the birth. It does
not happen because Jack believes that his Ma and he are the only two humans in the world while
everything else that he sees on TV is fictional. This bright child has no understanding of the
complexity of family relations or friendships. Moreover, he has no idea that the “Outside” exists.
He has never seen the sun, a car, a dog, a bird, a house because in Jack’s world these things are
not real. His world is limited and unique, his world is his Ma. Jack has never seen another child or
has ever crossed a street, felt the rain, used the elevator, or hugged a person other than his Ma until
he is revealed the horrific truth about the giant space somewhere outside his home - outside his
Room. Once, when he is out there, Jack gets mad, confused, terrified, and although he is super
smart, and knows how to read, count and spell, he still does not understand how the outside world
works. Thus, he has enormous difficulties to adjust to it. Jack is also a boy who except from being
held as a captive, has pretended to be dead and has witnessed his mother being raped and
depressed. He was also there when she tried to kill herself. But among all these situations, by the
end of the novel, Jack is a boy who ends up living with his Ma in their big apartment, a happy,
thrilled boy who hopes to get a dog called Lucky one day. He becomes a kid who loves spending
time with his family and friends. Despite all the challenges and struggles, Jack starts learning how
to “live and survive” in this new outside world which is, according to him, getting bigger and
bigger day by day.

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 4.1. Jack’s Emotional Vulnerabilities in Room and the Outside
According to some previously interpreted theories of human development, one’s early
experiences during infancy and childhood are crucial in forming the basic character structure of
the adult. Although childhood is often regarded as the most innocent and happiest period of one’s
life, some children experience severe emotional problems while growing up and as a result have
problems to adjust to their often over-demanding environment.

In Jack’s case an over-demanding environment does not exist for the first five years of his
life because his mother is his only company and a role model. It is hard to decide whether his life
in Room is smooth and happy or completely dreadful, because from the perspective of five-year-
old child he lives happily with the person whom he adores and who represents everything that
matters to him. Jack is “Ma’s dead spit” (Donoghue 9) and she means the world to him. The two
of them spend their time in Room productively and are blessed to have each other. However, this
nice and gleeful picture changes from time to time. Those are the dreadful times when cold air
comes in (59) and when Jack tries to shut his eyes tight and switch his brain off so fast in order not
to hear that man coming (33). The man’s name is Old Nick and he comes at night when Jack is
locked in the Wardrobe. Jack says that nothing makes him and Ma fearful except Old Nick and
that despite being a happy and lively kid, he is often scared of things this “half human” could do
to them. Old Nick comes rather frequently and each time he comes, Jack is forced to put a blanket
over his head and press his ears so as not to hear the bed creaking and Old Nick panting (91). He
hears and unknowingly witnesses his mother being sexually and physically abused and cannot do
anything about that. In those stressful and traumatic moments, he fights with himself and wants to
help his Ma, but remains mute and unable to speak and protect her even though he would like to.
In those moments of trauma, while he is spatially dislocated in the Wardrobe, he hates Old Nick
and wants to kill him for hurting and kicking his Ma. When he sees the giant purple bruises on her
neck, Jack has violent thoughts and wants to protect her. However, the trauma is so big and serious
that he is unable to mention the purple spots even to his Ma and out of his inability to act, he starts
feeling helpless. He develops the Oedipus complex, and due the inevitable failure to identify with
his father, the villain and the rapist, he stays within the complex and fears that male figures are
going to harm him. In cases when this happens, the phallic stage fixation occurs and this may result
in a child being an aggressive, over-ambitious and vain person. Jack may have experienced not
only the phallic stage fixation, but the oral stage fixation as well. Though he is five, his mother is

14
still breastfeeding him in order to provide him with the missing nutrients. On the other side, Jack
adores it, he needs it and would not stop asking for it. However, this oral stage fixation may lead
to Jack resisting maturation and later on he may become dependent on others in fulfilling his needs.
Pictures of Ma being raped, abused, yelled at, pictures of him having to pretend to be dead and
finding out about the whole outside world, pictures of her state of depression and inability to get
out of the bed and her trying to kill herself are extremely traumatic series of events in Jack’s life.
He responds to this trauma with the intense fear of losing things he likes and knows about and is
constantly scared that he is going to lose his mother, his toys and his Room’s companions. That
post-traumatic stress disorder can be noticed throughout his incapability to be anywhere on his
own, as he has already become highly dependent on the others, especially on his Ma.

Besides feelings of fear, helplessness, besides the developed trauma and unresolved
Oedipal complex, Jack has definitely developed some anxiety disorders such as the obsessive-
compulsive disorder. These developed compulsions help Jack diminish the stress and find possible
relief. By saying this, I refer to Jack’s need to count the same things all over again, bite into things
such as a blanket or a shirt and suck Ma’s tooth. These repeated behaviors and acts occur in
situations when Jack wants to feel better, to forget about existing stress or fear and calm himself.
Thus, he counts the creaks of the bed before Old Nick stops abusing his Ma (46), bites a blanket
which tastes soft like bread in his mouth (60), bites nails when he feels sad (5), counts fingers and
toes when some new people approach him (322) and more of all, sucks his mother’s rotten tooth
in order to be closer to her. His acts of counting and sucking things help him feel safe and help
him feel mother’s nearness.

Another struggle of Jack’s is definitely jealousy. Since the very start, Ma has only been
his. Ma becomes and stays his first and only love object and he cannot stand anyone being so close
to her. When she tries to explain that she used to be a little kid many years ago and that she has a
mother, a father and a brother who she likes and misses, he becomes frustrated, angry and
disappointed. Jack ignores the facts and her being honest and does not want to accept the fact that
he has to share his Ma with someone else. Thus, when he sees his grandma in the hospital for the
first time, he does feel hostile towards her a little bit. However, this jealousy becomes less evident
by the end of the novel as Jacks starts learning about the world overall.

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 The transition between Room and the Outside threatens to destroy Jack’s identity. He is
afraid and anxious about everything and he wishes to be four and ignorant about the real world
again. At first, he does not feel safe and is tired from the Outside already because in Room he was
safe and because the real world is scary (273). However, as the time passes Jack succeeds to
improve his behavior and starts controlling his emotions. He becomes less jealous, less frightened
and is finally ready to forget about what had happened before. Unfortunately, none of us is able to
predict with any certainty what will happen with him and pass a conclusion on weather Jack is
going to forget or suppress his trauma, the endured hell, or not. The only thing one may guess is
that Jack has started the process of becoming a trusting and open person who is ready to show
affection towards others and has hope about his future life in the crazy and dizzy Outside world.

4.2. Social Isolation in Room and Its Impact on Jack’s Social Life

According to Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development, the basic component of a

healthy personality is one’s interaction with the environment, and it is social and cultural
experiences that play a crucial role in the development and growth of human beings.

By the age of five, Jack’s only society is his Ma and despite her best attempts, Jack’s
environment is seriously limited until the escape day. This five-year-old boy knows no one besides
his mother and the frightful Old Nick and due to the experienced social deprivation, he is expected
to show some resistance towards society adaptation once he is outside of his comfort zone. No
matter how real and happy those first five years of Jack’s life were, his world is still confined. For
Jack, Room represents a beautiful place which does not seem cramped, dirty or stuffy, simply
because he had never experienced anything better. Therefore, Room is his perfect place, for his
tribe of two.

Room is also a fictional world in which he plays with the objects such as a meltedy spoon,
a lamp or a balloon. Moreover, it is Jack’s secure routine of living and playing with companions
called the Rug, the Blanket, the Wardrobe or the Bed. In Room Jack has no communication with
other kids and the only “peers” in his structured regimen are cartoon characters Dora the Explorer
and her friends whom he adores and with anticipation waits to hug and see. It is only Dora who
always needs his help to find a magic trick and who waits for him to say “Yeah” (Donoghue 13).

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Though he does not know anything about solitude, he does feel lonely and bored from time to
time. Thus, he cries when Ma kills the Spider, the Mouse, or the Mosquito (his friends) and when
she does not want to have Lucky (the imagined dog) so we can assume that the boy unconsciously
craves for someone other than his mother. Brave Ma tries to keep Jack healthy and occupied all
the time so the two of them play interesting games and do fun activities such as Simon says, the
Trampoline and the Orchestra as she is trying to animate him and make a proper use of their free
time in Room.

Once when he is out there, Jack’s world changes completely so that it seems like a cartoon
with him in it (174). He realizes that “the she and the he” persons from TV are real (52) and it
feels like his head is going to burst from all the new things he has to believe in (109). After leaving
his home, Room, Jack feels doubtful about everything and during the first couple of days, he seems
not ready to adjust to the new environment. Jack becomes what Erikson described in his theory “a
shameful person” who is visible though not ready to be so. Moreover, the boy has the impulse to
bury his face and to sink right into the ground (Erikson 71). Jack seems not ready to be the part of
the Outside world and often feels guilty even for mere thoughts or actions that nobody has watched.
In those moments of possible human interaction, Jack is afraid of being found out. Thus, when a
stranger starts talking to him he pretends not to hear (346) and when someone looks at him he runs
straight to the bushes (326). In those moments, Jack appears to be a frightened and
uncommunicative person which may be a direct consequence of the long social deprivation.
However, there are moments when he seems to be overly familiar once he gets to know someone
even a little bit.

Other struggles of Jack’s are lack of communication and feelings of discomfort when being
with people. Besides knowing how to speak, Jack is also a master of word sandwiches which is a
fun vocabulary activity of joining and combining two words together so as to get a new one.
However, Jack does definitely have some difficulties to understand or to talk to someone other
than his Ma. It becomes tiring and difficult for him to communicate with the police, the nurses or
anyone else as he got used to a parent-child interaction. Thus, he sometimes simply mumbles or
his speech becomes too low. However, within weeks of the grand rescue, Jacks starts
understanding his surrounding and starts developing close relationships. He becomes fond of his
grandmother, steppa, uncle, aunt and his little cousin and he likes to hang out with Dr. Clay and

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nurse Noreen. After a long period of shyness and demureness, Jacks starts socializing and
accepting society’s rules. He becomes a boy who stops going barefoot and accepts wearing shoes
and a boy who hopes to start school one day and make new friends.

At the end of the novel, Jack and Ma visit Room again and at this point, Jack sees his old
home in a different light and we may conclude that the boy is ready to adapt to the new life and its
order and that in future he may function normally. Moreover, we may say that the two of them are
ready to have the control of their own lives and seem ready for the new things that life would bring
them.

4.3. The Influence of the Confinement on Jack’s Cognitive Abilities

We have already stated that Jack has lived in a confined world with limited experiences. In
such a world, Ma is his only source of knowledge and despite the numerous difficulties she does
her best to educate her son. In their horrific environment, she raises the child who seems to be even
more advanced than his peers are, the boy who knows how to read, spell, count, and who is a real
champion of world sandwiches. The woman is a real hero who deploys her son’s extensive
vocabulary through different fun activities and as a result, Jack appears to be a young boy with
sophisticated and specific vocabulary.

On the other side, Jack has a very narrow frame of references and what his mother taught
him seems insufficient in the Outside world. The moment he steps out of Old Nick’s truck is when
he starts learning about the environment and according to Piaget, cognitive development highly
depends on the interaction between the environment and an organism. That means that during the
first five years of his life, Jack had relied completely on his mother and after entering the real
world he has started to feel confused and ignorant because the new world could not fit in those
dimensions that Jack and Ma had created. While trying to explain to him that “the he and the she”
persons exist, that the stores are real too, she does not have any material evidence of the existing
world and in such conditions, Jack is not able to assimilate new information into the existing
knowledge. He simply cannot fit his “Ma’s Ma” in his thoughts and assimilate “Ma’s Ma” to
anything he believes in. Because of that, he alters the previously acquired knowledge so as to fit
new information and therefore, he accommodates to the new reality.

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 In the Outside, Jack is confronted with the new stimuli and he cannot relate them to
anything because the real world does not fit into Jack’s knowledge. He has never seen a store so
when he sees it for the first time, he believes that it is a place where they sell men, women, and
children (Donoghue 386). Piaget explains that in such a state of accommodation one has to change
in order to fit the new stimuli and this is exactly what Jack does. He changes day by day and starts
structuring the world around him. He seems naïve and asks numerous “what” questions in order
not to fail to meet the environmental challenges. In case if he fails to adjust to his surrounding,
which seems to be beyond his current cognitive limits, he becomes closer to the state of
disequilibrium. When disequilibrium occurs, Jack may feel like being out of balance and the only
way to resolve it is by accepting a new level of understanding. Though sometimes with difficulties
and reluctantly, Jack mostly accepts what his Ma and people around him teach him and it seems
like he willingly acclimates to it.

The end of the novel proves that Jack does not want to return to the peace he had had in
Room but that he is ready to put all the new information together and construct a new reality and
a new life. Furthermore, Donoghue suggests that Jack will successfully adjust to the new
environment and life on the outside world in which “there are new things every single day” (387).

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 5. Conclusion

This paper has given an account of Jack’s life during the imprisonment and after his release
from it. While describing Jack’s limited experiences and some of the possible emotional, social
and cognitive vulnerabilities, we have consulted theories and opinions of several experts in order
to provide possible answers. With the aim to introduce the readers to our topic and due to our wish
to engage them in thinking about the topic, we have explained the basic concepts of developmental
psychology which in this paper are defined as a rich study area that investigates one’s development
from conception to death, while explaining how humans grow, behave, and change. In the attempt
to offer certain opinions concerning Jack’s development, we have observed three already
mentioned theories and we have examined how certain factors could influence one’s growth. We
have stated the importance of Freud’s beliefs and then used a series of his psychosexual stages in
order to describe Jack’s emotional problems. By following Freud’s theory, we have noticed that
Jack’s early experiences during infancy and childhood may influence his future character.
Therefore, our study clarifies that the boy has already experienced and in future, may experience
some possible emotional problems. His early experiences were traumatic and as a result, he seems
like a helpless and fearful person. Also, we assumed that Jack is likely to have experienced the
phallic and the oral stage fixation which may result in him being an over-dependent, vain and
aggressive person. Freud’s psychosexual theory deals with many factors of human development
and by exploring it, we concluded that the boy has an unresolved Oedipal complex as well as the
obsessive-compulsive disorder.

This study has also lead us to conclude the impact of Jack’s social isolation and while using
Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development, we explained that the boy has experienced a
complete social deprivation. These conditions have affected the boy’s life and sometimes he
seemed unready to behave in the outside world. Thus, he often felt ignorant and doubtful and he
had no skills for human interaction. As a result of that, he was overly familiar or uncommunicative
which in both cases lead to feelings of shame. Also, our findings would seem to suggest that when
it comes to cognitive abilities, Jack had a narrow frame of references and that the truth about the
real world took him to a phase of denial. By using Piaget’s principles of assimilation and
adaptation, we portrayed Jack’s current cognitive limitations but also expressed our bright hopes
about his future development.

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 In the end, even though we tried to be completely objective and professional while writing
this paper, all our assumptions and conclusions should be taken with a pinch of salt because of
certain limitations of our study. One is that we are not professional psychologists and other is that
we have never met a person like Jack. Thus, we are able to make some conclusions about certain
developmental challenges that Jack experienced, but we do not dare give a doubtless account of
his future development.

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