Previous
Ma
“Old Nick” is, in popular culture and common usage, a nickname for both Santa Claus and Satan—and in Room, Old Nick earns this strange sobriquet. Ma’s captor and rapist (and Jack’s biological father), Old Nick makes visits to Room many nights each week to bring “presents” of food and supplies—and to repeatedly rape Ma while Jack, unaware of what’s really going on, listens from inside Wardrobe. Not much is known about Old Nick other than he is a white man in his forties or fifties, and that he abducted Ma off her college campus when she was 19 by luring her towards his truck with a fake story about having a sick dog. Most of what is communicated about Old Nick is through Ma—because Jack sees so little of Old Nick (and doesn’t really understand who the man is anyway), Ma’s descriptions of Old Nick’s indifference in the face of her years-long suffering and his constant attempts to rub her face in his power over her and Jack show what kind of man he is. Old Nick is cruel, temperamental, and unfeeling—and yet in spite of his absolute power over Ma and Jack, Ma senses a part of him that seems to be growing increasingly fearful and uncertain. Eventually, Old Nick admits to Ma that he has been unemployed for six months, and this admission is what sparks Ma’s intense desire to escape Room before the increasingly unstable Old Nick does something terrible to her and Jack. After Ma and Jack’s “Great Escape,” Old Nick is apprehended and placed in jail to await trial. Ma relishes her captor’s encounter with justice.
Old Nick Quotes in Room
The Room quotes below are all either spoken by Old Nick or refer to Old Nick. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Presents
Quotes
Nothing makes Ma scared. Except Old Nick maybe. Mostly she calls him just him, I didn’t even know the name for him till I saw a cartoon about a guy that comes in the night called Old Nick. I call the real one that because he comes in the night, but he doesn’t look like the TV guy with a beard and horns and stuff.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Unlying
Quotes
“I don’t think you appreciate how good you’ve got it here,” says Old Nick. […] “Aboveground, natural light, central air, it’s a cut above some places, I can tell you. Fresh fruit, toiletries, what have you, click your fingers and it’s there. Plenty girls would thank their lucky stars for a setup like this, safe as houses. Specially with the kid—”
Is that me? […] I count my teeth, I keep getting it wrong, nineteen then twenty then nineteen again. I bite my tongue till it hurts.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
“He put a blindfold on me—”
“Like Blindman’s Buff?”
“Yeah, but not fun. He drove and drove, I was terrified.”
“Where was I?”
“You hadn’t happened yet, remember?”
I forgot. “Was the dog in the truck too?”
“There was no dog.” Ma’s sounding cranky again. “You have to let me tell this story.”
“Can I pick another?”
“It’s what happened.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
“So, Jack, we mustn’t try and hurt him again. When he came back the next night, he said, number one, nothing would ever make him tell me the code. And number two, if I ever tried a stunt like that again, he’d go away and I’d get hungrier and hungrier till I died.”
She’s stopped I think.
My tummy creaks really loud and I figure it out, why Ma’s telling me the terrible story. She’s telling me that we’re going—
Then I’m blinking and covering my eyes, everything’s all dazzling because Lamp’s come back on.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Room LitChart as a printable PDF.
Old Nick Quotes in Room
The Room quotes below are all either spoken by Old Nick or refer to Old Nick. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Presents
Quotes
Nothing makes Ma scared. Except Old Nick maybe. Mostly she calls him just him, I didn’t even know the name for him till I saw a cartoon about a guy that comes in the night called Old Nick. I call the real one that because he comes in the night, but he doesn’t look like the TV guy with a beard and horns and stuff.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Unlying
Quotes
“I don’t think you appreciate how good you’ve got it here,” says Old Nick. […] “Aboveground, natural light, central air, it’s a cut above some places, I can tell you. Fresh fruit, toiletries, what have you, click your fingers and it’s there. Plenty girls would thank their lucky stars for a setup like this, safe as houses. Specially with the kid—”
Is that me? […] I count my teeth, I keep getting it wrong, nineteen then twenty then nineteen again. I bite my tongue till it hurts.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
“He put a blindfold on me—”
“Like Blindman’s Buff?”
“Yeah, but not fun. He drove and drove, I was terrified.”
“Where was I?”
“You hadn’t happened yet, remember?”
I forgot. “Was the dog in the truck too?”
“There was no dog.” Ma’s sounding cranky again. “You have to let me tell this story.”
“Can I pick another?”
“It’s what happened.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
“So, Jack, we mustn’t try and hurt him again. When he came back the next night, he said, number one, nothing would ever make him tell me the code. And number two, if I ever tried a stunt like that again, he’d go away and I’d get hungrier and hungrier till I died.”
She’s stopped I think.
My tummy creaks really loud and I figure it out, why Ma’s telling me the terrible story. She’s telling me that we’re going—
Then I’m blinking and covering my eyes, everything’s all dazzling because Lamp’s come back on.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
