Thursday, 11 October 2012

Fairytales Research - Jack and the Beanstalk.

Jack is a young boy living with his widowed mother, who's only income is from their cow. However, the cow stops giving milk one morning, so Jack gets sent to the market to sell it. On the way to the market he meets an old man who offers to give him "magic" beans in exchange for the cow.
Jack takes the beans but when he arrives home without money, his mother becomes furious and throws the beans out the window and sends Jack to bed.
As Jack sleeps, the beans grow into a giant beanstalk into the sky. He climbs the beanstalk and arrives in a land where he follows a road to a house, which happens to be the home of a giant. He enters the house and asks the giant's wife for food. She gives him food, but the giant returns and senses that a human is nearby.
However, Jack is hidden by the giant's wife and overhears the giant counting his money. Jack steals a bag of gold coins as he makes his escape down the beanstalk.
He repeats his journey up the beanstalk two more times, each time he is helped by the increasingly suspicious wife of the giant, and narrowly escapes with one of the giant's treasures. The second time, he steals a hen which laid golden eggs, and the third time a magical harp that played by itself. This time, he is almost caught by the giant, who proceeds to follow him down the beanstalk. Jack calls his mother for an axe and chops the beanstalk down, killing the giant. At the end of the story, Jack and his mother live happily ever after with their new riches.

The origin of Jack and the Beanstalk is unclear. The earliest printed edition which survived, is the 1807 book The History of Jack and the Bean Stalk, printed by Benjamin Tabart. Although the story was already in existence sometime before this, the story entitled The Story of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean was included in the 1734 second edition of Round About Our Coal-Fire.
In the classic version of the tale, the giant is unnamed, but many plays based on the story name him as Blunderbore; a giant of that name also appears in Jack the Giant Killer.

There aren't many versions of the fairytale.
Even though there have been various different stories written on it, they are all based around the same thing, and the story hasn't changed a lot over the years.
It is known however that Warner Bros. are making a new version of the story into a film, which will be in production soon.

However, there are many different versions of media used to tell the story.
The first film adaptation was made in 1902 by Edwin S. Porter.
Walt Disney made an adaptation entitled Mickey and the Beanstalk in 1947. This adaptation of the story put Mickey Mouse in the role of Jack, and accompanied him with Donald Duck, and Goofy. Mickey, Donald, and Goofy live in "Happy Valley" which is plagued by a severe drought, and they have nothing to eat except one loaf of bread. Mickey trades in the cow (which Donald was going to kill for food) for the magic beans. Donald throws the beans out the window in a fit of rage, and the beanstalk sprouts that night, lifting the three of them into the sky while they sleep. In the magical kingdom, Mickey, Donald, and Goofy help themselves to a sumptuous feast. This rouses the ire of the giant (named "Willie" in this version), who captures Donald and Goofy and locks them in a box with a singing golden harp, and it's up to Mickey to find the keys to unlock the box and rescue them. The story also villainizes the giant by blaming Happy Valley's hard times on Willie's theft of the magic harp, whose song kept the land prosperous; unlike the harp of the original tale, this magic harp wants to be rescued from the giant, and the heroes return her to her rightful place and Happy Valley to the way it was.
As well as films, the story has been created into things such as pantomimes, comic books, cartoons, and parodies.

I would say that Jack and the Beanstalk's main target audience is young people.
The fairytale isn't really that scary, and the storyline is really interesting.
It can also be said however, that film adaptations of the story, can be targeted towards older viewers, for the representations of the giant and how scary he can be portrayed.

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