media res

In the discussions of this novel recently, one of the topics that kept coming up was the role of the media in the novel, and whether or not we as readers are inevitably playing a similar role. Of all the subtle social critiques embedded in this novel, I think this is the most hilariously ironic one: Donoghue must have known that most people who read this book would be lured in by the tantalizing plot descriptions and probably didn’t want to admit it to themselves. For our situation in this class that particular aspect might not seem to be as applicable, since were assigned to read this book, rather than choosing it out of lurid curiosity, but there are still many ways Donoghue tries to get the reader to contemplate their role as consumers of the story as they’re reading it.  

From the beginning, the reader is strongly allied with Ma and Jack. We get a first-hand view of Ma’s incredible success at raising him in impossible circumstances, and after so long with constant details of their captivity, it’s hard not to bristle at every poorly-thought-out remark or insensitive question Ma and Jack encounter after escaping Room. A reporter with a way to critique Ma’s parenting technique might make for a juicy story but the reader realizes that, as Ma says, they “don’t know the first thing about it.” It’s an uncomfortable revelation for the reader since we’ve all undoubtedly been the consumers of these types of sensationalist stories from the media without really considering the implications for the people involved.

I find Donoghue’s way of using the media to make the reader critique their own actions especially interesting because it reminds me of The White Boy Shuffle that some people read in African American Lit this fall. The basic idea of that book, for people who weren’t in that class, is that Gunnar Kaufman is a genius poet and basketball player who ends up so frustrated with white people that he ends up facilitating a vast suicide plot with all the other black people in America. The sly part of the book is that Gunnar is especially frustrated with how the white people enjoy reading his poetry and watching him play basketball, but don’t value him as a person; and the reader, by the end of the book, is forced to confront the question of whether they, too, are only interested in Gunnar for his life’s entertainment value rather than seeing him as an actual person. In this way, the white world looking at Gunnar is really similar to the media’s fascination with Ma and Jack.

Obviously this is kind of a flawed analogy because Gunnar’s struggle against systematic oppression is very different from Ma and Jack’s experience with the media exploiting their story, but it is just interesting to me how there are a lot of parallels. In both situations there doesn’t really seem to be that much inherently immoral about the situation – what’s wrong with appreciating some good poetry, or a fascinating story? – and there are probably good intentions behind most of what is happening, but when you look at it from the perspective of the person it’s affecting, you realize just how dehumanizing it really is. It’s also even more complicated because there doesn’t really seem to be a simple solution: it wouldn’t be better to ignore Ma and Jack’s story completely, or to shun Gunnar Kaufman’s poetry. It’s uncomfortable, as a reader, because we all recognize ourselves doing the same thing, and by reading the novel it’s almost like we’re still doing the very action the novel is critiquing.