In Neil Gailman’s short story, Don’t Ask Jack, he uses repetitions, symbols, supernatural circumstances, and nostalgia to intensify the mystique of the box. He repeats the line “The children did not play with it” and the use of negative words beginning with a “n”. Also, the symbols of a key. The author uses the children’s supernatural experiences to make his point, too. 

I believe Gailman repeated the line “The children did not play with it” to reiterate how scared the kids really were of “Jack”. By placing this line at the beginning of three paragraphs in a row, it shows how serious they were about never playing with the box, but how much time they spent talking, fanaticizing, and hiding the box. Even though they never actually “played” with it, they spent a large amount of their childhood wondering about it and fearing it. In the third paragraph, the line is changed from “The children did not play with it.” to “The children did not play with the Jack-in-the-box.” The line is still being repeated, but with a notable change, signifies a shift in the story that the reader can recognize before even finishing the paragraph. Throughout the story, the kids refer to it as Jack, while the adults refer to it as a Jack-in-the-box. With the story shifting from the adolescents to them becoming adults, this slight change in the repetition foreshadowed it. In the first two instances, it begins a paragraph spent talking about where it was hidden and the second was their theories on the evil that was trapped inside of it. They both are from the thoughts of children, with no talk of them becoming adults. The third, and changed time, is when the story shifts to talking about when they “grew up and left the great house”. Throughout this story, the author continuously uses “nobody”, “not”, “never”, and “no”. All of these words have a negative meaning and connotation. The reuse of these negative words, give the story an even more negative tone, than the meaning of the story already gives it. The story’s contents alone are very dark and negative; by using these words over and over again it is always saying what things were not, what they did not do, and what they did not know, therefore making it even more negative and dark. The first “nobody” used, adds to the mystery of Jack. It saying that nobody knows where it had come from, that it could have just appeared there, added to the kid’s fear and confusion over it. The first use of “not” used in the story is when the Jack-in-the-box is being personified. “Jack could not be released” was also the first time the box was given a negative tone. Released, especially in this circumstance, holds a lot of negative connotation. When “never” was used for the first time, it was used to describe how the children spent large amounts of time talking about this box, even though they had “never seen him”. 

By the end of the story, their old house is boarded up and empty. Gailman uses the image of the key to talk about Jack and the house. They are both locked up, abandoned, old, and full of secrets. Using keys to describe both, show their similarities. Jack, was thought to be evil, he was left alone, locked away, and went completely unused. He was being held inside his box because of this key. The house was locked up and left all alone and abandoned. Keys typically symbolize being able to unlock things and new discoveries, and in this story they symbolize the opposite. It is taking the secrets and insides of both the box and the house and locking them away for no one else to see. The differences the keys have symbolize the differences, while the keys alone bring them together. The key to the box being lost, shows it was not intentionally sealed up, while the house being “locked with huge iron keys” shows that it was done on purpose. The usage of the adjectives “huge” and “iron” back up that it was done with force and intention. 

Supernatural instances are typically read about and blown off because, to most people, they aren’t a real thing. To children, with active imaginations, they are very real. The difference in this circumstance is, typically once the adolescents grow up, they stop believing in these things; they did not. These adults still think back on their supernatural experiences. “He told them things they could never quite remember, things they were never able entirely to forget.” This shows that Gailman wanted to add an even more mysterious level to this unknown box. The box already has so many unknowns to it; a never ending mystery to it. By having an almost unbelievable occurrence happen to all of them, with none of them never talking about it, makes the reader want to believe it really happened. By not letting them remember what exactly the Jack-in-the-box said to them, just that he said something, makes the situation even more eerie. 

The author, Neil Gailman, wanted to create a mystery and surrounding unknown about this Jack-in-the-box stored away at the bottom of an old chest. He uses repetition, symbolism, and supernatural occurrences to do this. He wanted to do this to show how wild childrens imaginations can be, especially when it comes to the unknown. When things happen that are unexplainable, the normal adult questions it for awhile and if no answers come out, they let it go. Children let their minds wonder and end up with situations like this. Gailman perfectly creates the appropriate mystique around the box that only kids could come up with. 
