1. Town/City-suburb-creates hope for Ma-Despair
2. The most important room, though, may be his own bedroom, which belongs to him and to him alone, which he gets when Ma moves into her own apartment at the end of the book.
2.1. The complex Ma moves to is called Independent Living, a place where Ma can live independently from the Clinic, and, in a brilliant move of double meaning (nice job, Emma Donoghue) Jack and Ma can learn to live independently from each other in separate rooms.
3. Medical Center: Cumberland Clinic
3.1. It’s not enough for Ma and Jack to put up with the “vultures” from the press—at a certain point, Ma realizes she needs to strategize not against the media but with them, in order to secure a living for herself and a future for Jack. Ma’s difficult moral bargain has resounding emotional effects for both her and Jack.
3.1.1. Instead, it focuses on how the human spirit may transcend physical boundaries, and the disparity between external and internal freedom. (halfway house)
4. Outside
4.1. lend an unearthly edge to our own alien world.(interview)
4.2. It is arguable that what is imagined beyond the confines of “Room” is even more nuanced, more significant, more overwhelming than what happens within. This house has many mansions, and in its labyrinthine corridors strange new worlds collide.
4.2.1. And Ma doesn't know what YouTube or Facebook are until she gets out of Room, so she could very well have been kidnapped in 2001 or 2002.
4.2.2. Jack lives in a few different rooms in the Outside world
4.3. The way Jack thinks and talks about himself is made clear in this passage—and it is evident that his new self-conception is heavily influenced by the way he’s heard himself discussed in the media and the press.
5. Independent Living
6. The Mall
7. Room (Ending of the novel)
8. “there’s Room, there’s outer space, then all the TV planets, then heaven”(creates separate worlds for him) intangible- imaginary worlds- not real- never experienced it
8.1. Imaginary worlds are very important to Jack-his belief system
8.1.1. Within Room-imagination is key- Outside Room-problems arise (expectations)
9. That domesticity is a source of both reassurance and disturbance, and is indeed one of the film’s most brilliantly balanced elements. (breastfeeding, wardrobe-counting)
10. Room: 11/11 ft-
10.1. is an unexpectedly life-affirming parable of parenthood wrapped in the clothing of a modern-day horror story; a heartbreaking tale of the power of motherly love and of a nurtured child’s ability to find light in the dark woods of the adult world.
10.1.1. this is a prison (ma)
10.1.1.1. “Room” seems as large to us as it does to Jack
10.1.1.1.1. Somehow, Ma has made this living hell a fairytale, telling Jack tales of Wonderland and the Count of Monte Cristo, and singing him to sleep on the Big Rock Candy Mountain.
10.1.2. the gentle domesticity, rather than the shrieking claustrophobia, of Jack and Ma’s circumstances,
10.1.2.1. trembling universe
10.2. Within room every object has a capital letter just like a name would if we were to write it out, because to jack these are like his friends. he says good morning and good night to different objects as if they were people.
10.2.1. Ma keeps a routine for her and Jack throughout the days. they each have different jobs they do every morning and afternoon. Jack will count out 100 cereals for their breakfast and they will come up with games to do.
11. Outside (Within Room)
11.1. Room has a perfectly valid existence to Jack as a world. It doesn't seem small to him, because he's never experienced anything bigger.
11.1.1. The Room itself is a character of its own in the novel -- it's capitalized, as is everything it contains -- Lamp, Toothpaste, Table. Donoghue says she did not want it to feel as though Jack and his mother were living a "stunted version" of the American lifestyle.
12. Grandma's House
12.1. safer haven of Grandma’s house, an alternative reality into which she claims they can escape, and wherein the room of her own childhood awaits (Within Room)-Hope
12.1.1. Jack takes everything literally—and when Grandma says she’s tired, he doesn’t understand the myriad ways in which people can be tired. Grandma pities Jack as she begins to see just how disconnected from normal experiences he is—and how alone in the world he would truly be without Ma.
12.1.1.1. Grandma decides to take matters into her own hands and try to show Jack that he can be strong without Ma by his side—he can move through the world on his own.