Once again, Jack has shocked me with his wisdom and the profound nature of his observations. This is, of course, not the first time, as I was previously taken aback by his vocabulary, literacy, and ability to face the unknown so trustingly. Recently, I was impressed by this question:
. . . I bang my head on a faucet.
“Careful.”
Why do persons only say that after the hurt? (283)
This, to me, really captures a predominant theme of the novel. Once Ma and Jack have escaped Room, they find their own struggles in dealing with Outside. One of Ma’s is that people are celebrating their escape so much without paying any attention to those suffering in similar situations. When Jack highlights society's lack of forewarning and tendency towards useless advice after the fact, it reminded me of Ma’s complaints during her interview. Though she didn’t complain about the fact that nobody found the shed suspicious in the seven years she was locked in there, it certainly would've been reasonable to do so. If people care so much about Jack and Ma once they’re out of Room, it makes you wonder what efforts they made to recover them in the interim between Ma’s capture and their escape. As Jack says, they’re seemingly only concerned for Jack and Ma “after the hurt.”
As I mentioned before, Ma expresses her concern for those still in isolation during her interview:
“Her hand is pointing at the puffy-hair woman. “As for kids--there’s places where babies lie in orphanages five to a cot with pacifiers taped into their mouths, kids getting raped by Daddy every night, kids in prisons, whatever, making carpets till they go blind--” (235-236)
Just like with Jack and Ma, it’s an all-too-common phenomenon that society will celebrate a heroic story of somebody escaping their abysmal circumstances without bothering to combat the root of the problem. Jack, in his innocent, curious, and subtly profound way highlighted what is one of the most deeply rooted problems with Outside.
We didn't get to talk much in class about the various philosophical ideas that Jack brings up in the normal course of things, but this is of course one of them. I think you hit upon an important point, and perhaps something that Donoghue was attempting to convey: people do not care what happens to you. They only care about what happens afterwards and how they look in relation to it.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you that most of the time, people only celebrate heroes "after the hurt," but I think part of the problem is that situations where people are suffering are only brought to the attention of the media by people who escaped that suffering - people who are already heroes. Then, the majority of media attention is spent on determining what the effect of that suffering was on the hero (e.g., talking about Jack breastfeeding), while almost no time is spent on helping the people who still need help.
ReplyDeleteI also realized while reading that some of Jack's comments and observations are actually very philosophical and deep. I didn't notice this one though, and your connection between Jack's comment and how Jack and Ma were treated is strong. Like you said, there does seem to be a flaw in what has become normal in our society-- to care more about people after they escaped suffering than during the years and years that they were actually suffering.
ReplyDeleteI also realized while reading that some of Jack's comments and observations are actually very philosophical and deep. I didn't notice this one though, and your connection between Jack's comment and how Jack and Ma were treated is strong. Like you said, there does seem to be a flaw in what has become normal in our society-- to care more about people after they escaped suffering than during the years and years that they were actually suffering.
ReplyDeleteCool post. I remember thinking the line about being careful was significant as well, but I didn't make the connection to Ma's interview. There is a commercial on TV these days about a stockbroker or something, and there's a kid who asks all these questions, and eventually the dad is like "I don't know" and he realizes he find out. It's like a kid inadvertently asking a profound question, but it also shows their intelligence. And, Jack is very intelligent.
ReplyDeleteYou make a very interesting case about how we as a society deal with problems. It seems to me that it is often we treat them with a case by case basis when we should really look for the root of the problem and fix it.
ReplyDeleteGreat post that brings up a lot of good points. Yah, Jack does seem to bring in a bunch of subtle social commentary, doesn't he? Especially the point where the media likes to sensationalize a story more than focus on helping those affected. A lot of his questions are actually a lot deeper than they appear, so thanks for bringing that up.
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