EWRT 1C Class

Class 46

AGENDA Author Introduction:

Literary Style

QHQ Discussion

Author Biography Emma Donoghue was born in Dublin in 1969. She is a writer

of contemporary and historical fiction whose novels include the bestselling Slammerkin, The Sealed Letter, Landing, Life Mask, Hood, and Stirfry.

She is the youngest of eight children; not surprisingly, she attended Catholic convent schools in Dublin. Her BA (1990) is in English and French from University College Dublin. She later moved to England to do her PhD at Cambridge (1997) on the concept of friendship between men and women in eighteenth-century English fiction.

From the age of 23, she has earned a living as a writer. She now lives in London, Ontario, with her partner and their two children.

Emma Donoghue on Room

I borrowed observations, jokes, kid grammar and whole dialogues from our son Finn, who was five while I was writing it. Room was also inspired by... ancient folk motifs of walled-up virgins who give birth (e.g. Rapunzel), often to heroes (e.g. Danaë and Perseus). 

Historical Context Room was also inspired by the Fritzl

family’s escape from their dungeon in Austria

One day in 1984, 18 year old Elisabeth Fritzl helped her all ready abusive father install a door in the basement. There he handcuffed her, drugged her, and kept her captive for 24 years, during which time over she bore seven children. The torture took place just feet from his wife Rosemarie, just a few floors down from his tenants; just down the street from the butcher, the baker and the post office.

Style The style is deceptively simple in

terms of word choice and sentence structure, yet it was likely quite complicated to write prose that both told the story and accurately reflected the speech of the narrator. To achieve this perspective, Donoghue studied both cases of children born of rape and autistic children.

The Narrator Her narrator, five year old Jack, has a

sophisticated vocabulary that reflects his above average education. His clumsy way of speaking gives readers the feel of a small child, but Donoghue manages to keep the coherence of an older person. The narration is informative, familiar, private, and intimate. Because of his living situation, of course, the young narrator’s perspective is very narrow.

Group Discussion QHQs

QHQs to page 156 Q: Why does the author let the five-year-old boy narrate the story?

Q: Why does the narrator personify all the inanimate object?

Q: What is the relationship between the objects that Jack considers real and the objects that Jack considers as “TV”? Q: “Cats and Rocks are only TV” (p.17)

“ Bunnies are TV but carrots are real” (p.19)“Vegetables are all real but ice cream is TV” (p.20)

Q: Why does Ma nurse Jack for so long?

Q: Why does the narrator keep referencing back to Alice from Alice in the Wonderland?

Was the story of the mermaid and the magical comb about Jack and his mother?

HOMEWORK Room: finish the novel. Read the

chapter titled “Living”

Post #33 Choose one QHQ Room “Living”

Explain the dynamic between Old Nick and Ma. Why does the author choose not to tell us Old Nick’s story?

What role do you think the media play in the novel? How does the media contribute to the trauma.