Confinement and the Transnational in Emma Donoghue’s Room

Abstract

This article contends that Emma Donoghue’s Room (2010) generates its transnational effects through its approach to narrating elements of the carceral situation which its central characters Ma and Jack survive. Situating Room within Donoghue’s practice as a writer of historical fiction, the article studies the sources she drew on when writing her novel, the spaces the characters inhabit and the things they surround themselves with, as well as the language used by the narrator, Jack. By focalising this narrative of coercive confinement through the worldview of a five-year-old child, Donoghue creates a text that is transnationally mobile in its approach to language, space and things. In this way, Room can be read as part of Ireland’s literature of coercive confinement, while also showing that this literary tradition can be profitably interpreted through a transnational lens.  @font-face{font-family:"Cambria Math";panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;mso-font-charset:0;mso-generic-font-family:roman;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal{mso-style-unhide:no;mso-style-qformat:yes;mso-style-parent:"";margin:0cm;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";}.MsoChpDefault{mso-style-type:export-only;mso-default-props:yes;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}div.WordSection1{page:WordSection1;}