As a punishment for Ma’s infraction, Old Nick cuts the power for several days. When Old Nick wakes up and tries to talk to Jack, Ma flies into a rage and begins screaming. The conversation intrigues Jack, who climbs out of Wardrobe in the middle of the night to look at Old Nick. One night, Jack overhears Old Nick tell Ma that he has been out of work for six months and is struggling to pay the bills. Ma begins trying to tell Jack more about the world-and the circumstances of her abduction-by telling him fantasy stories, but the sensitive Jack is disturbed by Ma’s tales and confused when she tries to compare herself to Alice in Wonderland. Third, Jack finds a mouse alive in Room, and starts to understand that there are other creatures just out of reach. Next, Jack sees an advertisement for Ma’s “killers” on TV, and begins demanding to know if some things on TV are real. First, Jack witnesses Old Nick choking Ma one night. Shortly after Jack’s birthday, a series of things happens that shift Jack’s understanding of Room-and the world beyond it. Old Nick comes to Room several nights a week to bring by food and to rape Ma-every time he enters, by way of a heavy door sealed by an electronic keypad, Ma hides Jack away in Wardrobe so that Old Nick can’t see him, and so that he can’t see Old Nick. It also becomes evident that Jack believes no world exists outside of Room-Ma has told him that beyond Room, there is only Outer Space, and that the things they see on TV are fake things happening on “other planets.” Though Jack has a limited understanding of reality, he has a tremendous vocabulary, a clear moral center, and is beginning to want more out of life (such as toys and animal friends). Many of the things Jack and Ma do together are things that Jack perceives as games-but actually, activities like “Orchestra” (banging on objects and walls), “Scream” (screaming as loud as they can at the skylight), and flicking the lamp on and off again are designed to draw attention to the isolated hovel Ma and Jack are forbidden from ever leaving. Ma is just 26, but already suffers from a bad wrist as well as rotting teeth and a barely-controlled addiction to “killers,” which results in her having “Gone” days where she is unable to get out of bed.
Jack is Old Nick’s biological son, and Ma, who has been locked up in Room for seven years since she was abducted at 19, is just barely keeping herself and Jack alive-and sane. As Jack and Ma celebrate his birthday by reminiscing about the day of his birth, baking a cake, playing games, and watching TV, it becomes clear that Jack and Ma are captives of a man they know only as Old Nick.
On his fifth birthday, Jack wakes up next to Ma inside Room-the 11-by-11 shed that Jack has called home all his life.
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