JAKE AND THE BEANSTALK

Arrogant Jake Tuckus thinks he can climb ANYTHING.

He climbs a beanstalk higher and higher, until he faces something much much BIGGER...The Power Plant!
Key Elements of the Story: The Trade: Jack's mother sends him to sell their cow to feed themselves. Jack meets a stranger and trades the cow for five magic beans. The Beanstalk: Furious, Jack's mother throws the beans out the window. Overnight, they grow into a massive beanstalk reaching the sky. The Giant's Castle: Jack climbs the beanstalk and finds a giant's house, where the giant's wife helps him hide. The Ogre (Giant): The giant shouts "Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman!" while looking for Jack. The Theft: Jack steals a bag of gold, a hen that lays golden eggs, and a magic singing harp. The Escape: The giant chases Jack down the beanstalk. Jack grabs an axe and chops the beanstalk down, causing the giant to fall to his death. Happily Ever After: Using the stolen treasures, Jack and his mother live comfortably. Not too long ago I reread this story and the emotional core of it struck me in a way that the Disney version didn’t when I was a kid. Basically, Jack and his mother are starving to death. Their last chance at survival is to sell the only thing of any worth they have left (their scrawny cow). Jack’s mother entrusts him with the life or death important task of taking it into town and negotiating a good price for it. And what does this idiot kid do? He fucks everything up, gets swindled by a con man, and rather than coming home with money he comes home with three beans, an absurd joke. But Jack was really trying to do right. He believed the story about how the beans would feed his mom forever, and he felt like a hero for having found them. But that moment though, when Jack finally comes home and his mother sees what he brought... that he brought death, and the reason it happened is his uselessness. The rest of the story is about the superhuman lengths Jack has to go to to make up for a mistake like that. Or, it’s the dream of forgiveness he has while he dies.

THE ASTRAL TRAVELERS