Room

Room is a novel that explores more than just a room. It explores mother son relationships, children's minds and processing abilities, exploring new worlds, captive life, kidnapper and kidnappee relationships, and public opinions. Room is about a young woman and her five year old boy. The woman was kidnapped six years ago, impregnated, and then locked in a shed in the man's backyard, never getting to leave, never getting to do anything. She had her child in that room, on her rug, by herself. The man wasn't even there to comfort her, he never comforted her. The only thing good in her life is her simple minded son who only knows the room. He has names for all of the objects in the room which he calls rug or bed or spider. He thinks of them as friends because he never got to learn what a friend is. The way I know this, and the most interesting aspect of the book, is because the book is narrated by the boy. We are reading his mind, seeing things as he sees them, and it feels very realistic. That is what, at least in my opinion, really makes this book so exceptional. The other part is the intense social commentary that emerges as the mother and son themselves emerge. The two of them have to live in a hospital type building, not only because they have not been in the sun for six years, so they get burnt very very quickly, but also because the boy has a very hard time getting used to the real world. His mother often tried to convince him that there was more than just the room, but he never believed her until he was thrust into it. If the reality of a whole new world is not enough to cause a child to have an anxiety disorder, then the constant paparazzi and invading questions would be. The mother's story is broadcast all over the news, making it so that people swarm the hospital, trying to get an interview with her, trying to find out what it was like inside. This is the part that really hit me, the fact that people so blatantly did not care about the woman, they just cared about the fact that she had been locked away for years. They never once considered her as a real person, just something for their own entertainment. This whole thing with the people is the most jarring part of the book, as it is so completely accurate. It really brings to  life how people as a whole react to disaster situations, they rarely try to help or sympathize, they just ooh and ahh until they are satisfied, which is when they leave. This is really shown in the book and that is why I believe that it has true literary merit.