Later On

          Jack has been through a whole lot just in his first five years. He began inside a 11x11 area, completely cut off from everyone else, only really communicating with Ma. Then, when he hit 5, he escaped and dramatically shifted his frame of reference from Room being the world to Clinic being the world to only barely grasping where he now is. How will he cope later on?

          One thing that will certainly happen is that Jack's social skills will be lacking. He has only ever needed to talk to one person before, and needs to adopt a different way to talk to everyone else. His vocabulary certainly has not been affected, in fact his vocabulary is higher up than most other kids this age, as shown by Bronwyn, when Jack says "She doesn't talk right yet." This may be both to his benefit and to his detriment, as some kids his age may not be able to understand him.

          Jack's pace of learning seems to be at a higher level than most kids, and that plays into his favor. He recently had his entire worldview turned on its head, and he was able to cope, think through it, and develop a more structured and true worldview over the course of a couple of days. Even in the place in the book where we are, Jack is learning something new every day and is able to add it to his worldview. This will allow him to more quickly adapt to society, and while he might not be able to grasp the whole idea now, he certainly will soon.

          Finally, there is school. Jack will probably in the very beginning of his time in Outside be unable to go to school due to his fame. However, after that has died down, I think that he will do fine at school. In fact, school is most likely be where he learns the most about the world he lives in, because it will be able to correct him and teach him and his quick learning will make it all the faster. He will probably not have many friends in the beginning due to his lack of social skills, but no doubt he will acquire them before he is done.

          One last thing to wonder: is he going to remember Room? The doctors have mentioned that it will be forgotten later on in his life, and that the memories are already being forgotten through nightmares, but I think that instead he will at least have a fleeting remembrance of his time there. He will remember the general idea of Room, will probably remember some things, most notably the Great Escape, but will forget most of it. As for the nightmares, I wouldn't be surprised that they all stem from his new memories instead of his old ones, as those seem to be the most scary for him, but since they do not pertain to Room, I believe they will also pass.

Jefferson and His Relationship With Food

          There seems to be a fairly straight connection between Jefferson's feelings about eating food from other people and his feelings of self worth. He starts the book by refusing all food given to him, and by the end he has changed to eating full meals made by his nanan. In general, there were three stages to this progression.

          The first stage of Jefferson's progression is of him thinking of himself as a hog and eating like a hog. While Ms. Emma is there, Jefferson refuses to eat anything and hardly speaks. Later when grant comes in alone, he asks for corn rather than the food that Grant brought. When prompted, he eats straight out of the basket without hands, explaining that that's how hogs eat. This stage defines him as being a hog, potentially turning slightly human.

          The second stage comes a while later soon after Jefferson learns of his date of execution. Grant talks to him about it and Jefferson mentions that he wanted an entire gallon of ice cream to eat with a pot spoon. This stage also shows him reluctantly eating the food given to him by his nanan because "it would make her happy." These things are attributes that a child would exhibit: dreams of eating lots of junk food and squeamishness towards anything not junk food. This is important, as it represents a shift in Jefferson's perspective, from hog to human.

          The final stage occurs right before and during Jefferson's own narration through his notebook. Jefferson goes back on his claim to eat a gallon of ice cream and instead requests that his nanan make a large meal of all his favorite foods for him. Also, right before this he offers to share food with Grant: a generous and human thing to do. This represents Jefferson's change from child to man, as he is more levelheaded and down-to-earth, and recognizes the people in his surroundings. While this is in its simplest form, a child would rarely give food willingly to someone unless they or the recipient hated said food, and a hog wouldn't care in the slightest.

          This change from hog to child to man can be seen in other aspects of the book as well, however Jefferson's relationship with food while he is on death row most accurately represents the changes being made inside himself as he "grows up" in the months that he is there.