Exploring Various Facets of
Identity Crisis of the Child Protagonist in Emma Donoghue’s
Room
Dr. A. Murugesan¹, Jincy S. S.²
ABSTRACT
The French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan in his
theory of identity formation states that there exist three stages in
the creation of identity for a child. The three stages are imaginary
stage, symbolic stage and real stage. The paper titled “Exploring
Various Facets of Identity Crisis of Child Protagonist in Emma
Donoghue’s Room” is an expedition of this statement through the
child protagonist Jack from Emma Donoghue’s 2010 novel Room. Novel
narrates the story of Joy Newsome and her child Jack and how they
manage to escape from the imprisonment of Old Nick. During the
imprisonment period Ma was locked within a sound proofed cell and
Jack was born due to the continuous rape od Old Nick. Whenever they
came outside from the imprisonment Jack’s misshapen identity
formation became evident. This paper tries to analyse the
mishappenings in Jack’s identity formation and how those things
affect his outside life.
Keywords – Room, Psychoanalysis, Jacques Lacan, Identity Formation,
Crisis.
