Character Analysis
(Avoiding Spoilers)
Grew Up... happily, in the suburbs with her parents. Born Joy Newsome, Ma spent her teenage years running track and hanging out with her friends.
Living... in hell. When Ma was only 17, she was abducted by a man she knows only as “Old Nick.” He locked her away inside a tiny shed where she has lived for the past seven years. Since then Ma has been subjected to constant physical and psychological abuse with zero access to the outside world.
Profession... mother. Ma’s one respite in life is her son, Jack. Born two years into he captivity, Jack gave Ma something to live for. She raised him to believe their tiny prison is the entire world, dubbing it “Room.”
Interests... creating a magical world for Jack. Endlessly creative, Ma tries to inject joy and whimsy into her son’s limited world. She creates fun exercises to keep him healthy and uses everything from egg shells to toilet bowls to create games and toys for him. To make Jack feel less alone, she personifies everything in Room, like “Lamp,” “Rug,” and “Skylight.”
Relationship Status... perpetually alone. Other than her abusive captor and her young son, Ma has no one to talk to. Although she tries to maintain a brave face, sometimes she has “gone days” where she can’t even get out of bed.
Challenge... protecting Jack. Ma long ago resigned herself to her the horror of her existence, but she is determined to give Jack a better life. She fiercely protects him from Old Nick, hiding Jack away in “Wardrobe” whenever her captor comes to rape her. But while she created a safe haven for Jack in his early years, Ma is slowly beginning to realize that he can’t live his entire life in Room.
Personality... creative, resilient, and often bitter. Ma has the remarkable ability to make the best of a truly impossible situation, but she is not immune to fits of despair and deep resentment. For the most part though, Ma manages to create joy and light for her son despite their bleak conditions.
Get to Know her in...
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Jack is a young boy of five years old who has lived all his life in one room. He believes everything within it are the only real things in the world. But what will happen when his Ma suddenly tells him that there are other things outside of Room?
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‘I wait for his boots to drop. They fall on Floor, one thump, two thumps, that’s how I know he’s going to get into Bed with Ma now and make it squeak. I count the squeaks because I’m excellent at numbers. I have to count, I can’t lose count, if I lose count I don’t know what. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10...’ Kidnapped as a teenage girl, Ma has been locked inside a purpose built room in her captor’s garden for seven years. Her five-year-old son, Jack, has no concept of the world outside and happily exists inside Room with the help of Ma’s games and his vivid imagination where objects like Rug, Lamp and TV are his only friends. But for Ma the time has come to escape and face their biggest challenge to date: the world outside Room.
