Narrated in Humor but Squeezing Hearts…

Narrated in Humor but Squeezing Hearts…

                                          Makineedi Surya Bhaskar

The story of a five-year old boy who born and grown in a small room and his mother having no attachment with the outer world comprises the story of the novel-ROOM, written by Emma Donoghue. About seven years ago, the mother was kidnapped and imprisoned in an under ground chamber of 11 sft.

The novel is a narrative by the boy of 5 years and earned a good place in literature. The technique of story-telling is so wonderful that we feel the story is told by the boy sitting on our side.

The ‘Room' is his world. It is his only world. It is his entire world which provides him warmth, happy, condolence and empathy. All is well with the ‘room', he feels. He has borne therein the ‘room.' He himself along with his mother eats sleeps plays and learn things therein the ‘room'.

The room is ‘the home' for Jack. But it is a prison to his mom. She was brought as a prisoner at her 19th year. She used to succumb to the bloody rapist everyday to get the necessary food material that keep up the life of her son.

She has created a wonderful world in the ‘room' itself. She gathered all her mental powers and made converged energies in her to give education, entertainment and complete nourishment to her boy. By the way, she also keeps up her mental health.

Reading this novel means going ourselves into an entire individual world of the ‘room'. The two-member family has its own language, own signs and own conversations of humor. She made all the things in the ‘room' like bureau, rug, plant and a bent spoon- every thing playing a key role in their lives. They used to watch TV, but very limited fearing that it may devour their brains. The mom and the son together perform exercise in the mornings. They eat at regular timings. She writes lyrics, sings them well and especially narrates stories to her boy ranging from Berlin Wall to Prince Diana and many a folklore.

When the kidnapper comes into the ‘room' at evenings, she hides her son in a bureau. Jack hears the kidnaper's insatiable pleasure of bed from within the bureau. He used to count his pants till they are stopped. He says that at some times her mother will slide into depression and that he used to sit silently then. She knows the ‘room' will not give them a permanent satisfaction.

Jack starts questioning when he reached five. She tries to convince him to believe that there is a real world outside. She tells him that they should in any way; get out of the ‘room'. But he goes on opposing her views. When all is well in the ‘room', what is the need of going out? He argues why should they lose the known world for what is unknown. But he tells that he will do as per her will for she is the dearest to him.

Once they succeed in stepping into the outer world, the business of mingling with the outer people starts. With the growing relations with the outer people, the bond between the mom and the son goes on decreasing. Jack has to do many a thing. The writer adeptly depicts the way Jack behave on gradual depart with his mother. The real dialogue of Donoghue's novel actually starts at this juncture. Is the world within the ‘room' safer rather than the world out? Does the outer world compel Jack to share inevitably his time with the unknown persons or with those of the departed by her mom in the past? Is that mother get the earlier satisfaction of spending her entire time with his rejoice son? Is the condition of many choices difficult rather than the condition of no choice? All are questions.

A nice person she is, indeed. She expresses her views boldly with the person who takes her interview after escaping from the ‘room'. When she is asked of the imprisoned life in the ‘room', she tells that slavery and loneliness are not at all strange. She rather questions boldly whether the interviewer doesn't know that at above 25 thousands of prisoners inAmericaare leading the punishment of loneliness. Some of them are living with loneliness since 20 years, she exclaims pathetically. Coming to the children, she elucidates that in orphanages about five children taped the mouths are bedded on a single cot. So many girls are being raped by their fathers. The children in the jails are leading their lives kneading the carpets until their vision is lost.  She grieves.

Posing these questions is the very essence of the novel. This is a story of the bothered. This story depicts the impact of the language and its use in a story-telling way on the development of a child. A story narrated in a tone of humor but in a way of squeezing the hearts, the ‘Room' gives an excellent account of love-bond between a mother and a son that makes the existence possible  in the ‘room' which seems rather impossible. The confine feel of the room by the mother symbolizes the real narrowness of the outer world. The happiness which is not gained in the outer broad and limitless world, on the contrary, is gained in the ‘room'. It is an agreeable paradox touched and effectively elucidated in the novel