It is no doubt that Neil Gaiman is a talent at the fantastic literature field. He is adept at using rummy, terrified, and facetious words to creates a fantastic world which is attractive for readers. In “Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions”, the collection of his short stories, “Don’t Ask Jack” is the shortest one. However, although the story is so short and makes it hard to builds a particular fantasy literature, Neil Gaiman still creates a well-rounded portrayal of Jack, and builds an integrated story through describing Jack as a symbol which represent the kids’ childhood and their rich imagination in the story.

In the first paragraph, Neil gives Jack a mysterious image. According to the article, “Nobody knew where the toy had come from” (71), Neil uses the word “toy” instead of its’ name Jack because nobody can remember its’ origin. It is antique, with the attractive mystery. But Jack was given to the nursery. Why did his old owner abandon it? Is he inauspicious? Just the first short paragraph gives the readers a lot of feelings, gives them freedom to image, and longing for more details of Jack.

Then Neil moves to the description of Jack’s box. That box is so special, it is heavy, well-made, and locked by a rusty latch (71). Because the box is valuable, these children dare not open it without the key, they do not want to break this beautiful box, even though it is inviting. So as Neil states, “Jack could not be released from his box” (71). Neil uses a terry word “released”. This word gives Jack life and thought, and emotion. The word makes reader feel Jack’s emotion. He looks does not like stay in the box, what does he want to do when he releases from the box? By using these terrified word, Neil builds a horrible atmosphere and make readers nervous.

In the next paragraph, Neil gives more details of Jack’s box. Jack was buried by many broken toys. Clowns, conjuring tricks, and marionettes. They are all toys which bring joy to kids at ordinary time, but when they are broken, and locked in an old, heavy box, stay with the mysterious Jack. They are not that funny things. They stay with dark, they are obsolete, and eccentric. So the Jack in the box is not usual too. In the fourth paragraph, Neil states that the children do not play with the box (72). Even though the box is attractive to them, it makes them scared at the same time. They have many stories about Jack even they did not see him before. Jack plays different roles in their stories. According to the text, Jack is the evil wizard, and the guardian for Pandora’s box (72). Children’s imagination is infinite, there are always new things in their minds, they will have outlandish thoughts which the adults never know and understand. At that point, Neil shows us that the terry things about Jack might be these children’s imagination. Jack is just a normal toy and these children give him a life, make him live in the world, and give him different identities.

In the fifth paragraph, when the children grow up, they leave the house and do not play in the nursery anymore. Jack was forgotten too. But as the next three paragraphs states, each kid still has some memory about Jack. They remember they went to find Jack at night, and “he told them each things they could never quite remember, things they were never able to entirely to forget” (72). This three paragraphs are important because it finally starts to unveil Jack’s mystery. Connect the sentence above with the prior paragraphs, we can find that Jack represent the children’s childhood. Their childhood is funny, interesting, and fantastic. But after a long time, they gradually forget it, and just have few memories about the mysterious Jack in the old heavy treasure chests.

Then Neil starts to describe the children’s life after they grow up from the paragraph nine to eleven. Neil gives the readers many details about the children’s adult life. As Neil states, “The oldest boy died in the Great War. The youngest……inherited the house……was found in the cellar one night with cloths and paraffin and matches, trying to burn the great house to the ground.” (73). These sentences show the bleakness of adult’s life. Their life is not as funny as past, they struggle with the death and disease, and the vapidity of life. Compare to the prior paragraphs, the destination between childhood and adult life is obvious. And in the ten and eleven paragraphs, Neil talks about the other girls’ conditions. They become women and always visit the old house and brother’s grave. But as years passed, the house become more and more shabby. The age takes over their vitality, and their memory of childhood. They used to be creative, insouciant, and childish, and finally they were destroyed by life. Neil delineate a picture of the old house: “ owls and bats have made their home in the old attic nursery, rats build their nests among the forgotten toys……” (73). This picture show readers the cruel reality: time passed relentlessly, finally eliminate all pleasure, leave the people stay with their tenuous memory of past.

At the last paragraph, Neil declares that Jack still stay in the box and waits for somebody else to open the box again (73). In my opinion, Jack is not only a toy here. Jack becomes an imagery and represents the innocent childhood. These children’s memories are stock in the box and stay with Jack forever, but there are more children who will meets Jack, Rose, or whosever, and spend their funny childhood with them.

To sum up, as a symbol in the text, Jack represent the imagination and creativity of kids’ childhood. Everybody may has a toy similar to Jack, and it can recall the distant memory of the past. Life is sterile, but we used to be delighted. Such a funny time is a treasure of our whole life. We all eager to be innocent, but finally we will realize that time waits for no man, once we forgot Jack, we will never back to past again.
