Minor Characters Play a Major Role

The story of Jack and Ma has been told, but we fail to acknowledge the roles that the minor characters play in the novel. After all, Jack’s story is all about integration into the real world and his interactions with people other than Ma. When Jack first enters the outside world he is dazed and confused, and can’t seem to connect with anything or anyone. The first person he makes any sort of connection to is Grandma.

Unlike every other person Jack has met, Grandma doesn’t seem to give two thoughts before treating Jack as a normal human being. Everyone else, especially the media, sees him as a unique creature that has emerged from Room after 5 years and they are treating him more like a test subject than an actual person with feelings. Grandma is the total opposite, when she first meets Jack she is very accepting and Jack is able to connect with her way faster than anyone else. Ma’s father, on the other hand wants nothing to do with Jack. While it seems that this action would harm Jack, I think it gives him very valuable perspective. It allows him to see that the world isn’t perfect. While Jack was in Room, while it is awful to think about, he was technically in a “perfect place”. Now take this with a grain of salt, but he was subject to no diseases, everything was provided for him, he was surrounded by the one person he loves constantly; it seems to me that Room seemed to display many Edenic qualities.

When Jack finally entered the outside world, he needed to realize that there are flaws in the world, and that not everything is perfect. Which is why Ma’s father is a key character in Jack’s integration and development in the world. Similarly, Ma’s overdose was a very important aspect of the book. Not because it made Jack realize anything about death – because Jack didn’t understand the total gravity of the situation—but because it gave Jack a reason to be separated from Ma and become better acclimated to society. During Ma’s recovery Leo played a much more traditional role of the “father figure”, this figure is also incredibly important in establishing some sort of anchor for Jack. Jack has been able to understand quite a bit about the world, but he still struggles with communicating with others in a way that they understand him. Leo teaches him the ins and outs, and becomes more of a friend to Jack than another judgmental adult. 

Jack's Intelligence

Despite Jack’s malnourishment and below average size and height, his intelligence seems to be way above average. I don’t really remember being a 5-year-old, but being 5 years old is around kindergarten age and already Jack is able to empathize with the characters in the fairytales and understand concepts way deeper than most 5 year olds could dream of. In the story about the mermaid and the baby, Jack asks Ma why the mermaid doesn’t take the baby with her at the end of the story. Ma corrects the story and says of course the mermaid takes the baby. Jack recognizes that he acts as the baby in this story, and that from his narration we understand that something doesn’t sit well with Jack about leaving the baby behind. Jack sort of understands that he is more of a hindrance to Ma and that he is somehow messing up her plans.

The most shocking part is that Ma has been trapped for years and years, and has had all the time in the world to plan some sort of escape plan involving and using Jack to her advantage. Yet, in all those years she never came up with a solid plan. That is until Jack proposed that they could “trick” Nick, and suddenly a plan forms in Ma’s mind. Since we want to see Jack as the hero of the story, this revelation from Jack doesn’t come as a surprise. However, if we take a step back we realize that Jack is 5 years old and he has come up with a better plan in 1 day than Ma has in 5 years.

Jack’s intelligence is also manifest in his ability to adapt to plan B after they plan it all out. Very few 5 year olds are able to sit still, let alone fake playing dead for an extended period of time. Despite Jack’s physical limitations – which are made obvious to us again when he pees and poops a little while wrapped in the rug – he is able to stay silent and carry out a pretty extensive plan. In addition to staying silent he finds motivation through the fairytales and stories; like “GingerJack be nimble be quick” and imaging Old Nick is a giant and is “coming to tear me in half fee fie foe fum” (p140). He is able to take the themes of the fairytales and relate them to his own life and situation.