God's Yellow Face Has Sunglasses
I think the cutest thing for me in Room has been how Jack talks about God. He calls the sun "God's yellow face" and the moon "God's silver face," which is such a fun way to combine the idea of God creating the world and the classic drawing that gives the sun sunglasses and a smile (8; 26). Like a lot of the stuff in Room, it's not entirely clear whether Ma gave Jack these descriptions or if Jack created them himself based on his understanding of the world. Either way, it's still a fun description to read.
But Jack's connections to deities don't end with the sun and the moon. Baby Jesus is thanked for every meal because food comes from him "in the fields in Outside" (80). The concept of Baby Jesus making all the food Jack ever eats in a field is a fun combination of thanking Jesus for food and a basic understanding of farms (also, it's adorable that Jack says "Baby Jesus" -- perhaps Ma explained Jesus as Baby Jesus to help Jack understand and connect, or maybe even to prevent Jack from associating a savior such as Jesus with a man, as the only man he ever knew was Old Nick), but it also shows Jack's rather inaccurate understanding of the world. Of course, part of his incorrect understandings stem from the fact that he's five years old and five-year-olds don't perfectly understand things, but there's things another child might understand that he clearly doesn't simply because he's been trapped in Room for his entire life (e.g. stores, doctors, etc).
Essentially anything he doesn't understand or know about is connected to a deity. In Room, Jack's knowledge of the world is severely limited, mostly because Ma doesn't tell him a lot about Outside. Like any little kid, he fills in the gaps with what he does know. It's a normal thing for adult humans to do, let alone kids. The explanations kids create are just more out there and more mythical than explanations adults might create. For Jack, most everything in Outside isn't even real, but for the stuff that is, he creates explanations of them that involves some form of mythical intervention, such as everything that is delivered to them in Room.
At the beginning of Room, Old Nick is almost a god to Jack. He has powers that Ma doesn't, and he was never necessarily fully human in the first place since Jack had never actually seen him. To Jack, Old Nick is some magical power that brings things in the night, but also has the power to remove whatever he wants, like the electricity. Old Nick is really sort of a deity to Jack, even if we know that he's not good (not all deities have to be good). This idea of Old Nick fades as Jack learns more about what Old Nick has done to Ma and experiences some of it firsthand. But Old Nick is definitely lumped in with the other deities that cause things within Room. To Jack, that is what a deity is: something that is objectively Outside and causes things within Room.
But once Jack and Ma escape Room, Jack's explanations begin to take the more normal form expected from regular five-year-olds. Granted, he's still a little confused on how things work Outside, but there's a noticeable lack of God's faces and Baby Jesus outside of Room. In Room, Jack mentions God's faces and Baby Jesus often -- they're an integral part of existence. But Outside, as Jack learns more about how the world works and where all the stuff he used to think wasn't real and explained away with Old Nick comes from, he starts using more logic.
When he tries to figure things out, he doesn't dismiss things as "real" or "not real" anymore. In Room, the "not real" things didn't exist, but they were also nearly mythical: on some level, they kind of existed, especially when Ma started explaining that everything was real (e.g. Jack thought stores weren't real, but when Ma slips that they really exist, he understands that a bit and they become just a bit more real, even if he's not really aware of that happening). Outside, he finds things that he used to think aren't real, but he begins to try to understand them in a "real" context.
Despite the lack of general mythical explanations for things, there are elements of Jack's religious understandings that carry over into Outside. God's faces and Baby Jesus still very much exist for Jack. Even if they're not as responsible for everything he once thought they were, he still watches God's face fall in a sunset. For Jack, some things still can't be explained without deities yet.
But Jack's connections to deities don't end with the sun and the moon. Baby Jesus is thanked for every meal because food comes from him "in the fields in Outside" (80). The concept of Baby Jesus making all the food Jack ever eats in a field is a fun combination of thanking Jesus for food and a basic understanding of farms (also, it's adorable that Jack says "Baby Jesus" -- perhaps Ma explained Jesus as Baby Jesus to help Jack understand and connect, or maybe even to prevent Jack from associating a savior such as Jesus with a man, as the only man he ever knew was Old Nick), but it also shows Jack's rather inaccurate understanding of the world. Of course, part of his incorrect understandings stem from the fact that he's five years old and five-year-olds don't perfectly understand things, but there's things another child might understand that he clearly doesn't simply because he's been trapped in Room for his entire life (e.g. stores, doctors, etc).
Essentially anything he doesn't understand or know about is connected to a deity. In Room, Jack's knowledge of the world is severely limited, mostly because Ma doesn't tell him a lot about Outside. Like any little kid, he fills in the gaps with what he does know. It's a normal thing for adult humans to do, let alone kids. The explanations kids create are just more out there and more mythical than explanations adults might create. For Jack, most everything in Outside isn't even real, but for the stuff that is, he creates explanations of them that involves some form of mythical intervention, such as everything that is delivered to them in Room.
At the beginning of Room, Old Nick is almost a god to Jack. He has powers that Ma doesn't, and he was never necessarily fully human in the first place since Jack had never actually seen him. To Jack, Old Nick is some magical power that brings things in the night, but also has the power to remove whatever he wants, like the electricity. Old Nick is really sort of a deity to Jack, even if we know that he's not good (not all deities have to be good). This idea of Old Nick fades as Jack learns more about what Old Nick has done to Ma and experiences some of it firsthand. But Old Nick is definitely lumped in with the other deities that cause things within Room. To Jack, that is what a deity is: something that is objectively Outside and causes things within Room.
But once Jack and Ma escape Room, Jack's explanations begin to take the more normal form expected from regular five-year-olds. Granted, he's still a little confused on how things work Outside, but there's a noticeable lack of God's faces and Baby Jesus outside of Room. In Room, Jack mentions God's faces and Baby Jesus often -- they're an integral part of existence. But Outside, as Jack learns more about how the world works and where all the stuff he used to think wasn't real and explained away with Old Nick comes from, he starts using more logic.
When he tries to figure things out, he doesn't dismiss things as "real" or "not real" anymore. In Room, the "not real" things didn't exist, but they were also nearly mythical: on some level, they kind of existed, especially when Ma started explaining that everything was real (e.g. Jack thought stores weren't real, but when Ma slips that they really exist, he understands that a bit and they become just a bit more real, even if he's not really aware of that happening). Outside, he finds things that he used to think aren't real, but he begins to try to understand them in a "real" context.
Despite the lack of general mythical explanations for things, there are elements of Jack's religious understandings that carry over into Outside. God's faces and Baby Jesus still very much exist for Jack. Even if they're not as responsible for everything he once thought they were, he still watches God's face fall in a sunset. For Jack, some things still can't be explained without deities yet.
One thing I found interesting was the way that Ma and Jack's jailer is referred to as Old Nick. In class, we discussed the connections of the name both to Santa (St. Nick) and Satan (Old Nick/Old Scratch/etc.). When Jack first escapes, we learn from the police that Old Nick is not his really name: "the name doesn't match." Perhaps Ma does not use his real name both as a way of avoiding him ("speak of the devil, and he comes"), and as a way of making him less real by denying him a name.
ReplyDeleteGood point--in Room, Ma doesn't even call him "Old Nick." It's just "him"--definitely reminiscent of the old "don't speak the devil's name" idea., But I wouldn't be surprised if Ma doesn't even know Nick's real name: why would she, unless he's let it slip? If she did know his name, wouldn't she maybe tell Jack to tell it to the authorities as part of the plan? It would have saved a lot of time in the back of that police car, with Officer Oh trying to decipher Jack's words.
DeleteNice observations. Another thing, Jack thinks the different channels on TV are different planets, and he also thinks they're some sort of mythical entity that isn't real.
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a good point here. I would also note that the word "real" seems to have a different meaning for Jack than it does for us. To him something that is real is something he knows he can directly experience. When he was in Room, he seemed to acknowledge the existence of Outside and the things therein, such as the "medical planet", etc., but he didn't think they were real until Ma explained that he could actually go outside. We also see his definition of "real" shift as he leaves Room, wondering if he and Ma were real when they were in Room if all the stuff outside Room is what's real.
ReplyDeleteJack really does take religion differently than anyone ive met at least. His concept of God was especially unique in room because of his belief of faith without seeing, unlike how he thinks that unless he sees something in person it cant exist, its only on TV.
ReplyDeleteNow that we've long since left Room and Ma and Jack have escaped, I often forget to think back to how short a time ago it was that Outside was mythical. So first, thanks fro re-grounding me. Second, related though, I also then forget that Jack is still a 5-year-old trying to makes of a now-infinitely larger world. And I can't stop thinking, "how do you teach someone, a child, about infinity if all they've ever known is captivity?" Great post, Elizabeth!
ReplyDeleteNice post. I do agree how interesting the dynamic between moms "explanations" and jacks incorporation of them into his view of the world. It brings up an interesting dynamic about a child whose understanding of the world is made up greatly of white lies, the effect it has when it ends up crashing down quite quickly, and to see how quickly one can bounce back from this extreme shift in paradigm. It's also interesting why Ma had never reveled Old Nick's name to Jack. Maybe giving him a nickname would prevent any strong attachments or sentiments being formed.
ReplyDeleteTo add on to your initial point, Jack's entire cosmology while in Room is huge and interesting. It appears that all the planets which he can access through TV hover somewhere between real and fake. The only ones who can go between all of the planets are Baby Jesus (maybe kind of, or maybe he lives by himself, farming the food and smiling down some days and nights) and Old Nick (except Jack never saw Old Nick in TV, strangely enough).
ReplyDeleteWhen Jack goes Outside for the first time, his cosmology bends, then breaks. Very slowly and somewhat agonizingly for everyone involved. At first, Jack has to keep on remembering that things can be real AND be TV at the same time. He gets more proficient, but there are frequently things that overwhelm him about the world. And his sense of magic grows, if anything, more all-encompassing. Because he is surrounded every day by complex objects and people that he can't quite figure out, he starts accepting explanations without really understanding stuff more than when he was in Room. After all, by the time he's done asking what the birds in the sky are made of, a car probably will have zoomed by and he doesn't know what makes them go, either.
I really like the idea that Ma had Jack believe in Baby Jesus instead of a full grown one as a way to prevent Jack from associating him with Old Nick. And although Ma tried, as you pointed out it didn't entirely work. Jack still saw Old Nick as the one with the power, he brought food, electricity, and on Sundays he even brought them a special gift. But towards the end, Jack finally began to understand that Old Nick wasn't as nice as he appeared to be. Nice post!
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, that is not much different from how civilizations viewed the world as well. For the majority of human history, pre- and otherwise, people associated anything they didn't understand - which was mostly everything - with a deity. Jack is doing the same thing, as he does not and cannot understand what the sun is or how he gets his food. The only difference between him and older civilizations was that he had some previous idea to build off of (Jesus and God) and they had to make it from scratch.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting post! I imagine that Ma at one point explained one thing as connected somehow to G-d and/or Jesus and Jack's little brain took that explanation and then applied it to many other things as an explanation. He probably expanded on the other explanation and came up with his own imaginative ideas, in a way developing his own religion.
ReplyDelete