Bookclub-in-a-Box Discusses Room by Emma Donoghue by Marilyn Herbert

Author:Marilyn Herbert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bookclub-in-a-Box
Published: 2011-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Reincarnation

• Reincarnation corresponds most directly in the English language with the phrase “transmigration of the soul.” There are several variations on exactly what this idea of soul continuity entails. People are born onto earth, live out their time, then go back in order to reappear in a different form and in another era. Reincarnation is central to many major religions in India (Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism), and a connection to reincarnation is interwoven through the novel.

• The sections of the novel called “Dying,” “After,” and “Living” readily support this theme, and reflect a cycle of death and rebirth. Ma tells Jack that the first baby that she gave birth to in Room was reborn as him, her second child. Jack understands and describes his own birth, “you cutted the chord and I was free. Then I turned into a boy.” (p.4) At first, the reader is not aware of what exactly Jack

is referencing. Our attention is however drawn to it, as it is a curious thing to say. Jack thinks of himself as having been recycled. “I was me for real that time. I didn't go back.” (p.205)

• Ma tells Jack that people don't necessarily grow again in tummies, but could come back as a donkey or a snail, but Jack is only interested in the identity link to reincarnation. “If I grow in you again … Will you still call me Jack?” (p.315) He needs reassurance

about who he is.

• It is notable that the first person Jack meets in his second life in Outside is named Ajeet, a man of Indian heritage. The name Ajeet is associated with the Hindu god Vishnu, who governs transformation and preservation of the soul in its various incarnations. As discussed, Eastern religion in general, and specifically India's major religions, subscribe to reincarnation.

• Now that Jack and Ma are on the outside, they need to really define who they are and what they hope to become. They will have to change — to reinvent or reincarnate themselves — day by day, event by event. They will have to change in order to survive, as Ma did from her pre-kidnap days.

Ma nods. “Yeah, but it's not how I remember myself.”

“You had to change to survive.”

Noreen looks up. “Don't forget, you'd have changed anyway. Moving into your twenties, having a child – you wouldn't have stayed the same.” (p.314)

Jack, too, has to change and adapt to a post-Room world.

• Most significant to the theme of reincarnation is Jack's (“magic”) carpet ride which transported him from his first life to the next. The idea of the magic carpet is embedded in the stories of cultures ascribing to beliefs of reincarnation. (see Rug, p.63; see Fables, Fairy Tales, and Art, p.66)

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