Landon Julson
Miss Hassinger/ Mrs. Neville
English 12
22 February 2013
Final Essay for the Book Room
    Being locked up in a small square space at the age of about 6 can have a huge negative impact on growth and development of a child especially that young.  There are many ways in the normal world where people suffer from growth and development issues but when being locked up hostage gets taken into place you will have huge issues that can be life long problems.  Jack is lucky though because Ma made the bold move to escape and get away from that bad situation.  One huge important thing that Jack is missing out on that all children need is social interaction with other kids and adults.  Just being around people in general is a good thing for us as kids because we learn from watching elders and seeing mistakes and making them.  How many mistakes has Jack made? None, that is completely different from me as a kid I can assure you that.  I made so many mistakes as a 6 year old, but they helped me learn and somewhat mature into what I am today.  Kids at the age of about 6 take on the role of school.  They begin learning how to be controlled at school and shaped into a student.  Jack has poor development of thinking, as we see on page five Jack says, “Not when you’re on at the same time I’m off.” (5).  Jack doesn’t understand that people sleep at different times, and that sleep schedules are different for everyone.  In Jacks situation I think we would all think that when we have no understanding of what real life really is.  Jacks understanding of living things is not all there either.  I feel that he has no idea where they came from or how they got there, where as a normal 6 year old would probably have some sort of understanding of how this got to be and what its doing when its around you or scurrying by at a distance. Jack makes the statement on page ten, “it was my blood the mosquito was stealing, like a teeny vampire.  That’s the only time my blood ever came out of me.” (10).  I feel that Jack doesn’t really know what’s going on with how the mosquito came to be and just the basic understanding of other living things.  He has never learned about that kind of stuff like the normal kid.  One thing that has a slight benefit for the situation is that he has never experienced bad pain or severe injury.  Many kids at a young age get hurt or get scabs from simple accidents that Jack has never experienced.  On roughly page fifty Jack questions Old Nick by saying, “Why is he being so mean…so ungrateful on my birthday.” (50).  The only thing Jack knows about being mean or any sort of harm is the way Old nick treats them.  To some extent it’s a good that Jack hasn’t experienced pain or extreme torture.  Even though his situation can be considered torture he doesn’t know it, and what he doesn’t know is not there just like the outside world. 
    I think we are so interested in these types of stories because they are so different from what we normally see and hear of.  How often is it that you come home, turn on the TV and hear about things like the events that take place in Room? Hardly ever I can guarantee you.  I think its about the fact that they’re a different story and just somewhat unusual to people who are used to the normal, but another way I see it is that I’m very interested in how they escape if they do, or how they cope with a situation like that.  Things like what they did to pass time, or how they managed to survive with scare resources that we can’t live without on a normal everyday basis.  I thought the way Ma hid Jack from the things that were better off for him not knowing was very interesting.