Room By Emma Donoghue Use Of Fear

Fear is everywhere, it can mean two things forget everything and run or face everything and rise. People are afraid of many things that often at times they do not know what causes these fears to formulate. It can control how you behave in situations. Ma and Jack, two main characters in Room by Emma Donoghue, go through many obstacles and traumatic experiences in the novel. Ma is mainly controlled by fear within the walls of the Room, while Jack is more afraid of the unknown. In the room, they did not have to worry about societies requirements, their main focus was to survive under the rule of Old Nick. Once they escaped everything changed and their form of survival. New fears were developed in the outside world, especially for Jack.

Old Nick is a prime example of someone who used fear to keep control, in history, there are others like him who dictated and used fear to control. Napoleon, Hitler, Kim Jong II, and many more people who used fear to their advantage. Old Nick manipulated Ma by giving her the impression that he would hurt Jack, his son, if she did not behave to his liking. Old Nick kidnapped Ma when she was 19 and raped and abused for the time she was captured. She feared that the abuse she had to take would soon be inflicted on Jack if she did not hide him from Old Nick whenever he was around. She was afraid of Old Nick’s abuse because the two years before Jack was born she would attempt to escape any way possible. Once she attempted attacking Old Nick but thus, he ended up breaking her wrist. Whenever she retaliated against him she got punished in brutal ways, it did not have to be physical punishments all the time. He once cut off the power to the Room for three days, punishing not only Ma but Jack as well for Ma’s behaviour. She had argued and fought with Old Nick the night before angering him. He did not like the fact that she stood up to him, and to remind her of her place he cut off the power. Old Nick managed to embed fear into her so he could maintain

Ma is more aware of the outside world than Jack is as she spent 19years of her life there before her capture. She is aware of how people judge and react to people who are different, and how it is their nature to put labels on everything. Once Ma escapes after the five years of her capture she is worried about all that has changed within those years. When her and Jack are admitted into the clinic she is surrounded by the press questioning her about her choices and experience. She thinks about all of her friends who have probably found a life partner and have their own kids during this time. She thinks about all that has changed with her own family that Jack is not very aware of. When her mother and brother come to visit, a lot has changed since she learns that her father and mother got a divorce and her mother remarried. All this change adds pressure to Ma and makes her feel more protective over her son, she does not want people to judge him for being different. She did an interview to help stop all the judgment and answer questions so people would stop looking at her and her son as ‘freaks’. She is afraid of all the attention she is receiving and just wanted to fit in. Ma is aware of how harsh the world can be and she wants to give Jack a chance to be a normal five-year-old without having the past to haunt