Jack and the Beanstalk (fairy tale)

Jack and the Beanstalk is a well-known English fairy tale that has been retold in various iterations since at least the eighteenth century. It is one of the many so-called “Jack tales” featuring a heroic stock character called Jack. Traditionally, “Jack and the Beanstalk” tells the story of a poor boy named Jack who lives with his widowed mother and chooses to sell his family’s prized cow for a few magic beans. Soon after his mother throws the beans out of a window in a fit of rage, Jack is surprised to find that they have sprouted into a massive beanstalk that reaches into the clouds. Jack climbs the beanstalk and discovers a magical world where he encounters a giant. He also finds several enchanted items that he steals to save himself and his mother from poverty. In addition to the different literary versions of the story, “Jack and the Beanstalk” has been adapted for film, television, and the stage on numerous occasions.

Background

Although there are different variations of the tale, most versions of “Jack and the Beanstalk” follow the same basic storyline. In the traditional telling, the story follows the adventures of Jack, a young man who lives with his widowed mother on their family farm. Jack and his mother are desperately poor and are quickly running out of food. Their only means of survival is their prized cow, which they rely on for milk and to make butter and cheese. When things get so bad that they can no longer afford to keep the cow, Jack’s mother asks him to take it to market for sale. On his way to the market, Jack encounters a strange man who offers to purchase the cow in exchange for three magic beans. Jack is mesmerized by the man’s proposition and agrees to the deal. Excitedly, Jack returns home and tells his mother about the beans. To his surprise, she is livid at his decision and throws the beans out of a window. Upset with himself, Jack goes to bed and laments his actions.

Early the next morning, Jack awakes to find that a towering beanstalk has sprouted from the beans. The beanstalk is as thick as a tree trunk and so tall that it disappears into the clouds. Curious, Jack climbs the beanstalk and eventually arrives in a magical land in the sky. He soon learns that the land is ruled by a giant—or an ogre in some versions—who lives with his wife in a great castle. Jack makes friends with the giant’s wife and accepts her invitation to the castle. Fearful that her husband will be angry, the wife attempts to keep Jack hidden. When the giant returns, however, he quickly realizes that something is amiss and sets out to find Jack. Meanwhile, Jack learns that giant has several valuable treasures locked away in the castle. The most prized of these is a goose that lays golden eggs. Jack decides to steal the goose to save himself and his mother. After narrowly escaping the giant’s clutches, Jack descends the beanstalk with the goose and makes it back to the bottom. Realizing the giant is climbing down after him, Jack grabs an axe and chops the beanstalk down. The giant plummets to his death and Jack and his mother become rich with the help of the golden goose.

Overview

“Jack and the Beanstalk” is a classic fairy tale with a long and varied history. Like many fairy tales, “Jack and the Beanstalk” first emerged thousands of years ago as an orally transmitted story. According to anthropologists Jamshid Tehrani and Sara Graça da Silva, the oral history of “Jack and the Beanstalk” can be traced back to the time when eastern and western Indo-European languages first branched apart about 5,000 years ago. The story’s beanstalk can be viewed as similar to other beanstalk structures meant to allow people to ascend into the sky, such as the Tower of Babel or the branch of the Bodhi of Buddha.

The earliest known literary iteration of “Jack and the Beanstalk” was published in England as part of a 1734 reprint of Round About our Coal-Fire: or Christmas Entertainments (1730). In that work, the “Jack and the Beanstalk” story was spoofed in a skit called “Enchantment demonstrated in the Story of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean.” The skit poked fun at the absurdity of the original tale.

“Jack and the Beanstalk” ultimately made its modern literary debut in 1807. That year, two versions of the story appeared in separate publications. These first was Benjamin Tabart’s The History of Jack and the Bean-Stalk, Printed from the Original Manuscript, Never Before Published. The second version was called History of Mother Twaddle, and the Marvellous Atchievements of Her Son Jack, by an author identified only as B.A.T. Tabart’s rendition of the story is the traditional version and the one with which most modern readers are familiar. B.A.T.’s telling is a bit different. Among other things, it includes a servant girl who allows Jack to enter the giant’s house and later helps him kill her master. Australian folklorist Joseph Jacobs subsequently recorded another version of “Jack and the Beanstalk” in 1890 that was based a telling of the story he heard as a child. His take on the tale was closer to Tabart’s, but had some key differences. For example, Jacobs’ Jack is simply a mischievous trickster, while the actions of Tabart’s Jack are presented as entirely justified. In the years that followed, both the Tabart and Jacobs versions of the story remained the most well-known, though there were eventually so many others that no single iteration could realistically be called definitive.

Over the years, numerous film and television adaptations of the “Jack and the Beanstalk” story has been created. The first of these was a 1902 film adaptation made for the Edison Manufacturing Company. Other notable examples include a 1947 Disney adaptation called Mickey and the Beanstalk, a 1952 Abbot and Costello adaptation simply known as Jack and the Beanstalk, and a 2009 film of the same name that starred Christopher Lloyd, Chevy Chase, James Earl Jones, Gilbert Gottfried, and others. Notable television adaptations include the Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoons Jack-Wabbit and the Beanstalk (1943), Beanstalk Bunny (1955), and Tweety and the Beanstalk (1957); a Three Stooges animated short called Three Jacks and a Beanstalk (1965); and a Jim Henson Company miniseries adaptation known as Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story (2001).

Bibliography

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“History of Jack and Beanstalk.” SurLaLune, www.surlalunefairytales.com/jackbeanstalk/history.html. Accessed 18 Mar. 2019.

Kraft, Amy. “Some Fairy Tales May be 6,000 Years Old.” CBS News, 26 Apr. 2016, www.cbsnews.com/news/tale-as-old-as-time-some-fairy-tales-may-be-6000-years-old. Accessed 18 Mar. 2019.

Ness, Mari. “The Original Story of “Jack and the Beanstalk” Was Emphatically Not for Children.” Tor, 12 Apr. 2018, www.tor.com/2018/04/12/the-original-story-of-jack-and-the-beanstalk-was-emphatically-not-for-children. Accessed 18 Mar. 2019.

“A Summary and Analysis of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk.’” Interesting Literature, 28 Apr. 2018, interestingliterature.com/2018/04/28/a-summary-and-analysis-of-jack-and-the-beanstalk. Accessed 18 Mar. 2019.

Winick, Stephen. “Jack the Giant Slayer: Some Folklore Background.” Huffington Post, 6 Dec. 2017, www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-d-winick/jack-the-giantslayer-some‗b‗2804054.html. Accessed 18 Mar. 2019.

“You Don’t Know Jack: Dissecting One of the Most Popular Figures in Fairy Tales.” Fairytalez.com, 1 Jan. 2016, fairytalez.com/blog/you-dont-know-jack-dissecting-one-of-the-most-popular-figures-in-fairy-tales. Accessed 18 Mar. 2019.