63 pages 2 hours read

Emma Donoghue

Room

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2010

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Chapter 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 3, Pages 101-122 Summary: “Dying”

The next morning, Room is warm, and Old Nick has left groceries. Ma tries to help Plant, but the stem snaps. Ma explains that the cold killed Plant. Jack tries to fix Plant with tape, but it’s no use.

Jack’s new understanding is that everything outside Room is real. Everything he has learned about exists in Outside. They cannot go to Outside without the door code. Though he struggles to remember all the things that exist outside, he no longer doubts Ma.

On television, kids dye Easter eggs. Jack does not think the Easter Bunny can find Room. As part of physical education, Ma chooses a game called Corpse, where they compete to see who can lie still the longest. Jack makes a backpack out of a pillowcase for when they get rescued. Ma used to hope for rescue. She wrote notes and left them in the garbage bags. She tells Jack that no one is coming to rescue them. Jack is uneasy with Ma’s intensity.

After Jack nurses, Ma tells him they need to get out of Room all by themselves. Jack suggests they trick Old Nick the same way he tricked Ma.