Story Planning: Jack and the Beanstalk

This is a story planning post, preparing to write a new story for my storybook.  I’m going to mostly be doing research on what story I want to use, and what are some ways I could shake that story up.

·      The Ass, the Table and the Stick

o   This has the folkloric 3, which I like, and isn’t likely to be a familiar story.

o   I would probably want to change the end, because I don’t like it and I want to like Jack.

o   It’s a good length.  It only needs to be shortened a bit.

·      Little Jack Horner

o   I honestly have no ideas at the moment of how to expand this, but they may come eventually.  Or I could combine a couple of the nursery rhymes.

·      Jack Madden (The Legend of Knockgrafton)

o   I’m not sure whether I could use this, because it ends with him dying…

o   But it might be good to have a story where Jack isn’t really clever?

o   But it wouldn’t fit the introduction very well.

·      The Earl of Cattenborough

o   Oooh I did like this one.  It’s unfamiliar, and involves cleverness.  However, this time it’s on the part of the cat, not Jack himself.  I’m not sure if I like that, or if I would prefer to try and make it so that he’s contributing more.  I did say earlier that Jacks are clever.  Also, it may end up being too similar to the first story I told.

·      Jack and Jill

o   Same as Jack Horner

·      Jack Sprat

o   Same again.

·      Jack Be Nimble

o   And again

·      Jack and the Beanstalk

o   (Note: ) This one isn’t in the untextbook, but I’m sure that I could find a nice version to follow online.  Or, I suppose I could potentially go from memory, and really make it my own.  This story would add an element of fantasy that the others really don’t have.

(The Earl of Cattenborough will be Pleased to Partake of a Potato)

Bibliography:  These resources are from doing a search on the name Jack in the untextbook, found here.  It includes stories (of the above names) rewritten by Joseph Jacobs and Andrew Lang (and others, but those were the ones I might use).

Reading Notes: Native American Hero Tales, Part A

· The first story is the one about the unnatural uncle and the boy who becomes an eagle. I’m left very confused as to a couple of things. First, how can the uncle murder people and everyone know about it, and nothing be done? That’s so weird. Also, if the boy and his parents and everyone know that the uncle is trying to kill the nephew, why on earth does he still go off alone with him? Can’t he just be like, “No, you’re not trustworthy.”? I guess I could take some of those confusing elements and amplify them in a story to show why they’re kind of absurd? But, I suppose that it just shows a greater respect for authority than our culture, so I could emphasize that too.

· The second story is about the men who are pulled far away on their canoe while sealing. It stood out to me that there is no mention of whether anyone did anything right or wrong, but Bluejay, who had teased Grouse and persuaded the others to be stingy with him, seems to have to endure the most trials. Maybe I could write about these incidents from the point of view of village people? Why do they feel compelled to challenge outsiders like that, especially when it’s bad for themselves too?

· I don’t understand Dug-From-Ground at all. It seemed pretty random. What if I changed it so that instead of there being an unaccepting mother there was an unaccepting young woman that he wanted to marry?

· I love that the parting curse of the baby eagles is rheumatism.

· So Jonayaíyin kills the eagle and the elk. My favorite part about the first adventure is how he gets so much help, and it’s obvious that that’s necessary. I could incorporate that element. I also like how the bat is willing to resign herself to the fact that she lost her right to her feathers.

(eagle nest)

Bibliography:  Stith Thompson's anthology, Tales of the North American Indians.