John Donoghue Research Paper

Because Donoghue's aim was to focus on the love between Ma and Jack, the mother is represented as a loving parent. This is shown when Ma shields Jack from the reality of their situation throughout the first part of the novel. The phrase “Ma takes a pill from the silver pack that has 28 little spaceships,” uses statistics such as “28” and nouns such as “pill” indicating that Ma is taking the contraceptive pill and has a non-consensual sexual relationship with her captor. Oblivious to this, Jack refers to the pills as “spaceships,” reflecting the interests of a five-year-old boy- showing that Ma has protected him from the detrimental situation, so he is oblivious.

As well as this, Ma is represented as a victim of the past. This is shown through
This is shown through the use of the stative verb “need,” in “I need to hit something” Ma is unable to control her situation and just needs something, anything that she can have power over. Also, the destructive lexis of “hit” and “break” in “I’d love to break something.” “I need to hit something,” shows Ma feels increasingly trapped inside Room and with the power out she can only think about breaking free, which she can’t do, so she just wants to break something to dispel all the pent-up rage she has about being trapped. This shows how she’s not just a victim of the crime but a victim of her own
This is shown through the use of asyndetic listing, “her crudely cut hair is completely white, her lips are shrunken around toothless gums, her face is deeply lined, her body painfully thin, her skin almost transparent.” This has been used to show how her situation has had an effect on not only her mental wellbeing but also her physical health. The adjectives “white,” “shrunken,” “toothless,” and “transparent” and the adverb “painfully” all portray Elisabeth as a broken, damaged victim.
In addition to this, Elisabeth is represented as no better than an animal. “It was Elisabeth’s primeval instinct as a mother desperate to save her child that finally led to her father’s arrest.” The use of the adjective “primeval” modifying the noun “instinct” shows that Elisabeth’s animalistic tendencies finally kicked in and she became desperate to save her children. Davies intention was to portray Elisabeth as weak and totally destroyed, shown through the focus on her physical disintegration and her animalistic