Exploration Quotes in Room

How we cite our quotes: [Part.Paragraph]

Quote #7

My favorite bit of Outside is the window. It's different every time. A bird goes right by zoom, I don't know what it was. The shadows are all long again now, mine waves right across our room on the green wall. (4.512)

Looking out the window is the only way Jack is comfortable exploring his surroundings at first. As a kid who enjoys TV so much, this isn't unusual. It's a way for Jack to explore Outside without actually having to interact with it.

Quote #8

I find a triangularish thing the big of my nose that Noreen says is a rock. "It's millions of years old," says Ma. How does she know? I look at the under, there's no label. (4.874-4.876)

Jack explores the world the only way he knows how, through the lens of Room, where he has grown up. Everything in Room was bought for him, so it would have a label or some sort of identifier. He doesn't yet understand that there are things in nature that have been around a lot longer than labels have.

Quote #9

Pictures in the window are like in TV but blurrier, I see cars that are parked, a cement mixer, a motorbike and a car trailer with one two three four five cars on it, that's my best number. In a front yard a kid pushing a wheelbarrow with a little kid in it, that's funny. There's a dog crossing a road with a human on a rope, I think it's actually tied, not like the daycare that were just holding on. Traffic lights changing to green and a woman with crutches hopping and a huge bird on a trash, Deana says that's just a gull, they eat anything and everything. (4.1402)

Whew, that's one paragraph. One long, exhausting paragraph. Of course, it's not exhausting to Jack. While he's listing a whole bunch of mundane objects, they're all new and fascinating for him to see. Each of these things flying by as the car zooms down the room provides Jack with an opportunity for exploration.