Book Essay

You would think that growing up in a room with no connection to the outside world would be horrible and degrading to your mind. However this is surprisingly the opposite for Jack a kid who was supposedly born into captivity. In the book Room by Emma Donoghue a kid learns to grow up, with his mother in a world of darkness but is somehow intelligent about the world surrounding him.

Since the characters of this book are living in a tiny world of darkness, the reader may make expectations about how much the characters know about the outside world and regular American ways. Jack, a 5 year old boy that has never seen the outside world and whose only  other human connection to him is his is 27 year old mom has a decent level of knowledge that the average 5 year old would have, even without any schooling or people teaching him. For example Jack can speak relitively good English even though the only other person he’s heard speak is his mother and himself. He also picks up various things from watching TV shows such as Sponge Bob, or Dora the Explorer and learns a bit more about how the world ouside of his room works and functions. This shows that even though Jack has been trapped inside a tiny room for his entire life he still has some intelligence of the outside world.

On the other hand because he has had no worldy exposuere some things that his mom shows him or things he watches on TV he can sometimes mistake for being either something real or something else that is fake. He is often met with certain questions that if he was a normal 5 year old he could answer with ease but instead he wont know what to say because he knows nothing of the world. For example someone on TV that speaks in a different language that he doesn’t know about he will call a fake or made up language that people only use in TV shows or movies.  He also cannot read that well so he is forced to only read picture books or simple books or else he wont understand their meaning.

Even though he obviously has flaws, the fact that he was raised with nobody but his mother and knows what he knows is incredible. He obviously knows less then the average 5 year old he has much more knowledge then anybody else that was his age and in his situation.  He can learn how to mesure himself and make musical beats on different items without any background in these areas. These two things are something that even a normal 5 year old wouldn’t know how to do and some of his knowledge is even greater then a normal kid.

            Even as unfortunate as jack is and his situations are there is always a bright side to to everything that they do. This text shows that you can make something out of nothing and that you can learn a certain amount of knowledge from literally living in the dark.