63 pages 2 hours read

Emma Donoghue

Room

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2010

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Chapter 2

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 2, Pages 53-64 Summary: “Unlying”

The next morning, Ma’s neck is bruised from Old Nick. Old Nick thought Ma was attacking him. While watching Dora the Explorer, Jack speculates about what is and is not real. The forest and ships on the sea are not real, but the sea is somewhat real because that is where the toilet goes. He is not sure if boys on TV are real because they look like him, but everything on TV is fake.

Jack and Ma do “eye stretch” for physical education. They lie down and practice changing their focus between near things and far things. Jack asks Ma to read him Dylan the Digger, but Ma is tired of that book, so he asks for The Runaway Bunny instead.

For Scream, Ma screams longer than she normally does. While Ma naps, Jack pretends to phone call characters from television. Jack also plays a game called Keypad, where he tries to guess the numbers for the door’s keypad.

On TV, Jack spots a commercial for the same painkillers Ma takes. This rattles his concept of what is and is not real. He badgers Ma about it. Ma admits that the TV features real things that exist outside Room.

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