ipl-logo

Don T Ask Jack Short Story

1218 Words5 Pages

Don’t Ask Jack A truthful memory that you cannot quite remember, but still never forget. The creepy, yet capturing toy that never seems to be forgotten. As we grow all our old toys, seems to either be broken, thrown out or just lost and then forgotten. We may neglect them, but do they remember us, and if they do – what does that mean for us and our future? The short story “Don’t Ask Jack” was written in 2009 by Neil Gaiman, who is an English author of, among other things, short stories. Neil Gaiman’s short story “Don’t Ask Jack” follows significant themes such as the passing of time and childhood. The story follows the Jack-in-the-box and how it haunts the children who have possession of it. The story describes how the Jack-in-the-box has affected four children’s lives, both as children, but also as adults. The mood throughout the story is quite mysterious. In the beginning, we meet the children who are exceedingly afraid of the Jack-in-the-box. Another significant fact is that no one knows where the toy has come from – it seems that the author wants the reader to believe that the toy haphazardly appeared. Something that is also noteworthy to mention is the description of the toy. The phrase ‘he’ is being …show more content…

Every time the children talk about the Jack-in-the-box, it is grey days. The children are making stories about the Jack-in-the-box and his personality, such as him being an evil wizard or that his box is a Pandora’s box and that Jack is there as a guardian to prevent all the bad things from coming out (page 72, lines 3-8). Notwithstanding of the fact that the children have never seen him (the Jack-in-the-box), they still make these stories about him. The whole idea about the children making all these stories up contributes to the fact that one of the themes is childhood. Since they are children, they do not know how to describe it correctly, so they use their creativity to explain it to the best of their

Show More
Related
914 Words | 4 Pages

This is used to compare the visual from before, in which the children looked as if they weren’t human and detached from one another. Dominating the image are two young children who are laughing and entertaining themselves with a spade and shovel, portraying the immediate shift in behaviour once they are initiating in proper social activities. Thus, readers are enlightened and encouraged to stand up and be apart of the solution. Smith also provides the audience with a range of advantages in taking the kids outsides, from no more “arguments and demands” to “a child’s first ecstatic experience of buoyancy”; they are positioned to prevent further interactions with screens by allowing them to experience the outside world and enhance their “world of senses” and “childhood

Read More
824 Words | 4 Pages

The first description is Jack's feelings of guilt and unworthiness, and his desire to change himself into the boy he fantasizes about being. More than anything, Jack wants to be stable and privileged. Jack just wants to ultimately make his mother happy. He makes no attempt to actually come to reality with his fantasies. He can only keep dreaming and changing himself into the charming, charismatic kid he fantasises himself as.

Read More
920 Words | 4 Pages

Jack makes the boys believe that the beast will not hurt them as long as they do what he says, this gives Jack more control over the boys. When Jack and his hunters go hunting, they find a sow and kill it. When they

Read More
723 Words | 3 Pages

Consequently, one of the two men that are stationed behind this child seems to be smiling and enjoying the fact that they are terrorizing this child, while the other seems to be angry or fed up with the fact that a child is even in the equation. All of this strongly adds to the appeal of pathos which strengthens the posters' effect that it has on the audience’s feelings or emotions of a child being left home alone by themselves. The audience viewing this poster may feel a sense of sadness along with a bit of anger because they may feel bad that a child is left home by himself during a family vacation and on top of that, it is also the holidays. The sense of anger may come because the viewer may be angry at the child’s family and think to themselves, “what kind of people leave their child behind and dos not come back to get them?” Also in the background of the picture are Christmas lights and snow which helps the viewer understand that this film is developing around the holiday

Read More
437 Words | 2 Pages

Jack also engages in fights with his best friend, which at first is truly disheartening and unfair from the reader’s perspective, is later sympathized with the knowledge and understanding that it is Jacks true best shot at gaining the approval of his abusive stepfather Dwight and protecting himself. Jacks life is driven with emotional neglect and constant abuse; Dwight being the largest cause. Jack is desperate to transform himself into the masculine and happy person he wants to be, a deluded image and way of thinking that he believes will solve all his problems and hardships. Readers eventually gain the knowledge that his lies and deceit are his way of achieving this and providing him with comfort and hope as well as relief and escpae from his currently tortuous youth. ‘I couldn’t help but try to introduce new versions of myself as my interests changed, and as other versions of myself failed to persuade.’

Read More
1183 Words | 5 Pages

It illustrates how his views differ on those around him. Jack considers some boys less significant than others, like a hierarchy. From the beginning, Jack believes that he should be the chief of the boys as a king would be to his people. Jack and

Read More
211 Words | 1 Pages

The speech from Elizabeth Loftus “The Fiction of Memory” she mentions that she study false memory for almost 30 years. False memory is the things that people remember but didn’t happened or remember it differently than the way they really were. After watch the video “The Fiction of Memory” by Elizabeth Loftus, I realize that false memory can be affect on everyone. In my personal experience; sometime I went to the place that I never been there before, but I will believe that is place I have been when I was child.

Read More
1339 Words | 6 Pages

The contrast of colour choice between the room and the world is significant and obvious, this excites the viewer as it shows that he is free and a new chapter in his life is about to begin. Abrahamson shows the awestruck expression on Jack’s face by use a bird’s eye view of the boy, this is effective because we see a slight fear but excitement in his eyes. The camera angles are a useful better perspective on his view on the world. While Jack is running the camera man slows down into slow motion and we see Jack is terrified of

Read More
803 Words | 4 Pages

In Cormac McCarthy’s post apocalyptic novel The Road, he uses many physical objects to portray a deeper message. McCarthy creates the main character, the boy, to symbolize hope in a hopeless world. Throughout The Road the boy creates a warm presence to the cold and dark reality of what the world has become. Essentially he shines as the light of the world through all of his actions, not only with the father but with other characters that they come across in their journey along the road. The boy epitomizes the hope in which the father needs in order to continue to go throughout the doom-laden world.

Read More
1098 Words | 5 Pages

This role Jack jumps into allows him to imagine what life would have been like had he had his father around while he was maturing. Wilde explains that Jack tries to be the best father he can to Cecily strictly based on the fact that he was not afforded one, not biologically at least. Jack feels as though he has created the perfect life for himself

Read More
880 Words | 4 Pages

In this instance Jack tells the boys that he somehow has control over the beast. This shows how Jack uses the beast to draw the children towards him as the leader of the group. He always desires to rule over the boys and the beast is his scapegoat to do

Read More
683 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout the story the boys are faced with many obstacles that they must overcome and they often change trying to overcome those challenges. One character that had many changes was Jack, which include being a choir boy leader to being a tribe leader, growing more dangerous and aggressive as the story went on, and having the urge to hunt more. The first way Jack changed in the book was he went from being an egotistical choir leader to a fierce tribe leader. As the boys were painting their faces Jack, “looked in astonishment, no longer at himself but an awesome stranger” (Golding, 1954, p. 63). This quote is taken from a part in the book where Jack is starting to gain more power and some boys were starting to paint their faces.

Read More
1455 Words | 6 Pages

”14 Jack's history with his abusive father and his own problems causes him to become a danger. Hutz also states that the transformation of Jack shows how a “child victim” transforms “into the adult abuser. ”15This makes him a source of horror as it is a realistic, seemingly uncontrollable

Read More
859 Words | 4 Pages

The conflict between Ralph and Jack and the fears of the children have conjured up. I think I understanding the main idea of the Author wants to tell us, which is the importance of power, civilization and the villainous aspects of humanity. Although this is a sad story. I really enjoy reading this book because the Author had used a lot adjective, adverbs, and phrase to describe the settings, characters, and some significance objects, to metaphor today's

Read More
453 Words | 2 Pages

In the beginning of the story, Ascher believed that The Box Man was lonely, but as the story went on she realized that the man is very happy with the life that he is living and he has nothing to worry about.

Read More

More about Don T Ask Jack Short Story

Related Topics

Open Document