Castration Desire: Less is More in Emma Donoghue's Room

ABSTRACT:This article argues that the world is sick, and can only be treated by the way-of-seeing propounded by deliberately-cultivated queer children. Insofar as Emma's Donoghue's Jack is a relationally-capacious, gender-nonconforming child, he offers instruction on how to reassess any number of norming social contracts, including those underpinning fossil-fuel extraction and procreative sexuality. This article proposes that "queer" children, as nurtured by the caregivers who oversee their training in unsettling heteropatriarchy, provide a real-life model for creating sustainable kinship between the human and nonhuman world. Room is not typically mined for its environmental lessons; all the same, as this article demonstrates, Jack provides a blueprint for enabling worthwhile survival on an otherwise imminently eco-apocalyptic earth.