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How Is Manipulation Used In The Room By Emma Donoghue

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contrast some of the ways in which Sylvia Plath and Emma Donoghue present the manipulation of individuals.

Exploring the experiences of individuals in extreme and in the case of ‘Room’, unconceivable aspects of life, the theme of manipulation is central to the progression of both Sylvia Plath’s ‘Ariel’ and Emma Donoghue’s ‘Room’. Contrary to Donoghue, Plath stands as an autobiographical writer, drawing upon her own life surrounded with ambiguous identities and manipulation as the main motivation for her writing, such as the uncovering of her father’s hidden identity as a Nazi sympathiser. By contrast, while it has been bluntly concluded Donoghue’s work was spurred solely by the notorious Fritzl case, following one of the world’s most heinous …show more content…

This is also reflected in Plath’s poem ‘The Arrival of the Bee Box’, where the speaker discusses her dominance over a group of bees. Plath references herself as the ‘owner’ of the bees evoking a sense of authority. This is reinforced when she states ‘They can die, I need feed them nothing’14, highlighting her lack of empathy and ability to treat them as she wishes without retaliation. This is a clear link to ‘Room’ where Ma is aware if she does not obey Old Nick’s requests he will punish her and Jack. For instance, as a form of discipline he switches off their electricity supply, leaving them ‘freezing… and eating slimy vegetables’. This highlights his attempts to deprive them of basic human necessities, such as warm surroundings and a cooked meal. Shelby Koehne has suggested ‘the innocence of Jack’s perspective [makes] the story all the more horrible’. This interpretation is supported in his obliviousness to the fact he and Ma are even being punished, where he responds to Ma’s explanation of the situation with ‘Yeah, but I thought he was going to punish us too’15. This emphasises the extent of their suffering, with Jack identifying the most harrowing of circumstances completely normal and tolerable. Like Old Nick, at the end of the poem Plath attempts to play God stating, ‘Tomorrow... I will set them free. The box is only temporary’14, emphasising her ultimate power and …show more content…

Both instances highlight Old Nick attempting to create an ironically positive impression of himself. This creates an element of confusion for Jack over Old Nick’s identity, for he knows Ma deeply dislikes him, but being a child he cannot help but buy into his materialistic methods of persuasion. For Ma this treatment of Jack causes further tension with Old Nick, where she reproaches him for attempting to interact with Jack, screaming ‘Get away, get away from him!’. Emphasising just how much she wants to shelter Jack from direct contact with their captor. Old Nick’s ambiguous identity can be linked to his name which collocates with both Father Christmas and Satan. This is mirrored in Plath’s discussion of her father in ‘Daddy’, where her use of Holocaust imagery indicates she thinks of her father as a Nazi and herself a Jew. She states ‘I began to talk like a Jew. I think I may well be a Jew’5, to convey the extent of her suffering caused by her father. He is the oppressive Nazi and she is the vulnerable Jew. Plath creates the impression of a detached relationship with her father through the repeated use of the impersonal nouns ‘man’ and ‘brute’5, which highlights her attempts to identify herself as victim of torture, like those in the Holocaust and Jack, who have suffered at the hands of strangers. Nevertheless, while Plath does create

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