Jack Who Could Do Anything

Cuevas 1

Shane Cuevas

Mrs. Kelleher

English 9r

23 March 2015

“Jack Who Could Do Anything”

The story “Jack Who Could Do Anything” takes place in the Bahamas. The main characters are Jack, the Queen, and the snake. The story focuses on Jack. Jack is considered to be the hero because he can do anything he is asked. A lesson to be learned from this story is if you are achieving your goals it doesn’t matter how you achieve them. Besides teaching important values, “Jack Who Could Do Anything” also provides the reader insight into the culture of the

Bahamas.

There was trouble in the land. A snake destroyed and killed everything in its path. The king died and nobody could kill the snake. The Queen called Jack who could do anything. She paid him to get rid of the snake. Jack tricked the snake into going into the rope with a noose in it.

After killing the snake, Jack went to the Queen and asked for his reward. The Queen said

“before I give the the reward you have to go to the cornfield and kill the rice birds. If you do that you can marry my daughter.” Jacked tricked the birds into going in the basket. The Queen was happy and he got his money and married her daughter.

Jack was the hero in the story “Jack Who Could Do Anything” because he gets any job and completes it. When the snake killed the king, the Queen called Jack to get rid of the snake. Jack did this for a small sum of money. After he got rid of the snake, the Queen asked if he could get rid of all the rice birds in the cornfield. He completed all of the jobs he was asked and that is why Cuevas 2 he is the hero of the story. Jack was a sneaky character,but also brave. Jack delivered the moral of the story that sometimes being sneaky and creative can get the job done.

This story teaches about Caribbean wildlife. One of the main characters is the Python. Some pythons are the largest of snakes. “The reticulated python, Python reticulatus, has reached lengths of 33 feet and 300 pounds” (“Snake”). In the story the snake is about 100 feet 900 pounds. “Pythons are very different than most snakes by having a pair of well developed lungs rather than a much smaller left lung or no lung at all” (“Snake”). “All pythons lay eggs. These eggs usually hatch in about 60-80 days. in captivity pythons usually live more than 20 years”

(“Snake”). The snake is a very dangerous animal, and that is why in the story the Queen had Jack get rid of it.

Corn is also important in my story. The Queen told Jack to execute the rice birds because they were eating all the corn. Corn is a main crop now, and was 100s of years ago. “Explorers brought in seed grains of Indian maize to Europe and Africa in the 16th century. These were planted and eventually thrived throughout the world” (“Corn”). Corn was a major part of the

Caribbean diet ,and that is why the Queen in the story told Jack to kill them. “Worldwide, more than 327 acres of land are planted in corn each year, with a gain production in excess of 500 million metric tons (550 million U.S. tons)” (“Corn”). The rice birds were destroying the land crops (corn), and that is why Jack killed them.

Bahamas is the most important part of the story because that is the setting of the story.

“Bahamas has about 700 islands and 2,000 cays, or islets, and innumerable reefs, scattered over

760 miles of the Atlantic Ocean Southeast of the United States” (“Bahamas”). Throughout the story the setting is referred as an island. “The climate of the Bahamas is subtropical, averaging about 70 degrees Fahrenheit from November to May. In the summer it is usually around 90 Cuevas 3 degrees Fahrenheit” (Bahamas”). Jack worked through any weather conditions no matter what it was, There are almost no indigenous snakes in the Bahamas (“Bahamas”). The Bahamas is a beautiful location for a story just as this.\

In the story “Jack Who Could Do Anything” told about being creative and brave. The hero,

Jack, showed how creative and brave he was. He showed he could capture the snake with just a rope. He also caught all the rice birds just by catching them in a basket. The message of the story is, if you want to achieve your goal you can do it no matter what the circumstances are.

Throughout the story you learn about a huge snake, corn, and the climate in the Bahamas. “Jack

Who Could Do Anything” is a short story with clever lesson.

Cuevas 4

Works Cited

"Basket." Encyclopedia Americana. Grolier Online, 2015. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.

Boswell, Thomas D. "Bahamas." Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. Grolier Online, 2015. Web.

13 Mar. 2015.

Jagendorf, M.A. and Bog R.S. “Jack Who Could Do Anything.” A Treasury of Latin American

Folk Stories. New York: Vangaurd Press, 1960. Print.

Jugenheimer, Robert W. "Corn." Reviewed by J. W. Dudley. Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia.

Grolier Online, 2015. Web. 11 Mar. 2015

"Python (snake)." Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. Grolier Online, 2015. Web. 11 Mar. 2015