Um, doesn’t anyone else see the Oedipal roots of this story? Jack is spurned by his mother, causing an awakening of his sexual psyche (the bean pole) leading him to kill his father (the giant).
Surprising that HE never plummeted to his death in Jack’s front yard.
In fact, she was an udder failure.
Speaking of, the rules of physics in this story are also impossible to dissect. I can accept the existence of giants- it never says the giant was 90 feet tall or anything, I think the cutoff for giant in America is 7’0 tall and there’s any number of people who tower over that. I can accept a rare plant that shoots up dramatically fast and high- as I’ve posited it could be a strain of bamboo, a plant that grows so fast it can actually be seen growing and this particular strain perhaps irradiated or genetically tampered with, so that too is possible. BUT—
Jack and his mother and presumably the Beanseller live on solid ground. They are conditioned to conditions of grounddwellers and the gravity of living on Earth or at least an Earthlike planet. Jack climbs the beanstalk and finds a Giant living in the sky and walking around clearly unconcerned with an unaffected by physics as we know it, either wandering around held aloft by clouds or just levitating or perhaps somehow there is solid ground in the sky, which begs the question “why doesn’t it ever come crashing down to Earth?” Is it held aloft with Unobtainium- is this the Avatar world?
OR- perhaps- it is a mesa. That could be the case and would explain if the plant were indeed not bamboo how it was able to grow- it grew against the wall of a mesa, one on which a 7’0+ man had taken refuge, perhaps due to the prejudice he encountered below or because he preferred and or needed the oxygen of a higher altitude. So it could be that Jack was living in southern Utah or in Arizona or New Mexico and not Alfredian England.
And since American Indians are known to have cultivated numerous species of bean, perhaps he was a Hopi. Or go further south- an Inca- and this could be a tale of Macchu Picchu brought over by one of the starcraft that periodically comes out of Lake Titicaca to trade with people on the mountains and catch some shows in America, thus adding an extraterrestrial element.
I dunno. A beanstalk climbing up the side of a mesa? Maybe, but that raises the issue of how Jack severing the stem at the bottom is going to lead directly to the Giant’s fatal fall. If the tendrils of the stalk weren’t sufficient to anchor the plant to the cliff and provide a safe climbing path for him with it intact, then Jack hardly needed to bother chopping at the base.
And if they were sufficient to anchor the plant, cutting the base of the stalk isn’t likely to make much difference, wrt the Giant reaching Jack’s level in one piece.
In fairytales, fortune always favors the simpleminded. The beanseller has probably been offering beans for cows, horses, and Maseratis for years, but no one would bite, because they were always far too sensible. It’s sort of like a reverse idiot test - you are rewarded if you prove that you’re a complete fool.
Homoeroticism? Yes! Jack climbs a beanstalk??!!! Puuhhhleeeezzze!
Simple explanation that ties in every post so far:
I am Jack’s Oedipus complex.
As I said in my first post, Jack’s story is implausible, clearly made up without much consideration.
Jack, a poor youth, is found outside his mother’s cottage, with a large amount of cash and valuable objects. A large man is lying dead nearby. He has fallen from a height. There is also a large amount of crushed foliage. Obviously the authorities have moved in quickly before he had time to think.
We have found D B Cooper.
Is Jack the same Jack of Jack & Jill infamy? Kid gets around.
I think he did rob Jack. We never hear about what happened to the chopped down beanstalk…perhaps that’s what the beanseller really wanted, a full grown beanstalk. Think about it; we have a stalk that grows with impossible speed, extends to impossible heights, and those who climb it end up in another land with physics defying giant people. It’s some kind of organic interdimensional transport!
The thing almost has to have some sort of ultra-high energy un-Earthly metabolism to grow that fast, and is made of something pretty exotic to support not only its weight but that of a giant. And warping between dimensions definitely requires things you wouldn’t find in normal vegetation. Quite likely things that are radioactive or a close facsimile. For that matter, all of the giant’s loot since it came from a universe with slightly different physics quite possibly started to radioactively decay once it was brought into Jacks universe. Which explains why the beanseller didn’t grow one himself; he wanted to live. We just didn’t read the sequel where Jack dies of cancer in a year or two…
So Jack grows the thing, climbs up, and has the whole giant incident. He chops down the stalk, and goes home to count his lethal loot. The beanseller meanwhile quietly appropriates the now quiescent beanstalk to harvest its exotic dimension crossing materials now that it’s dead and no longer producing dangerous levels of exotic particles.
You’re all barking up the wrong, uh, beanstalk here. Clearly the key to the story here is Jack’s exchange of a cow, and its meat and milk, for beans, the foundation of a plant-based diet. Like the French movie Delicatessen, this is a tale that pits the meat-eating lifestyle against an alternative vegetarian regime. Jack is of course a young person who leaves home and discovers alternatives, immediately characterized by his elders as ‘lazy’ because he is not interested in their traditional rat-race. No doubt he has long hair and plays in a band as well. However, he’s proved right – by abandoning the materialist trappings of the industrial factory-farm and satisfying himself with the humble bean, Jack shows that he has actually gained security from want – the real wealth.
Later, the beanseller moved to Nigeria to try and offload his father’s riches to Americans.
I believe that the story is an allegory for the American-Soviet conflict.
Jack of course is the American, making all the wrong choices and being dumb as a rock, but still ending up with all the shiny stuff at the end.
The Giant is the Soviet Union, slow, ponderous, and not the brightest bulb in the string either.
The beanstalk – well, that could be several things. Perhaps it’s the Apollo-Soyuz joint mission. Or the Berlin Wall as it is being demolished by demonstrators who join hands across it. Whatever, it spans the two societies, and is instrumental in one of them crumbling.
I think that’s ample evidence right there, because I’m an American and I don’t need no freakin’ evidence to convince me of anything!
I happen to know that many of them belong to the Benevolent and Protective Order of the Beansellers. Fie upon you and your disparagement of the honorable profession of legume trading!
This is clearly impossible, as the western US is far too arid to support that kind of rapid plant growth.
The Beanseller could not know that Jack could beat the Giant.
My alternate theory is that Jack’s mom was a MILF, and the Beanseller wanted Jack dead and gone, and mom even poorer and needier than before. The he would step in, a wealthy businessman who could solve all her problems.
pfffft. Of course he knew Jack could beat the giant. His name was Jack, ferchrissake.
The only that could have made the Giant’s death a surer bet is if the kid’s name was B.L. Taylor.
And poor women who are needy to the point of starvation are not generally known for their pulchritudinous forms.
'Less the guy was some sort of fetishist, of course; gotta give Rule 34 its props.
Or, you know, David.
Balloons. Lots and lots of helium balloons.