While a Jack-in-the-Box is something that many people remember from their childhood fondly, that is not the case for these children. In Neil Gaiman’s short story, Don’t Ask Jack, he uses the repetition of the line “The children do not play with it” and the use of negative words beginning with an “n” to intensify the mystique of the box.   

I believe that the author, Neil Gaiman, repeated the line “The children did not play with it” to reiterate how scared and confused the children really were of “Jack” and the mystery that surrounded him. 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, fantasizing, and occasionally 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. Children have an expansive and limitless imagination, but they also are unexperienced and easily frightened. The idea that there was something locked inside that they could not see led their imagination on a wild ride and caused them to obsess over it. Their constant questioning of what could be in the box added to the box’s old exterior, led the children to develop a fear of the box. Children learn early on that something that is locked has a negative connotation. If a door is locked, they are unable to get to the other side, which is not good or what they want. The first two paragraphs with the repeating line begin with “The children did not play with it”, but in the third paragraph begins with “The children did not play with the Jack-in-the-box.” While most of the line is still being repeated, the notable change from “it” to “the Jack-in-the-box”, signifies a shift in the story before the reader even continues reading the following sentence. Throughout the story, the kids refer to the box as “Jack”, as if it were alive. Their parents and family members refer to it as a jack-in-the-box, because to them it is just a toy, not a living thing. By the author changing the repeated phrase, it foreshadowed the story shifting from their adolescence to their lives as adults. In the first occurrence of the phrase, the paragraph is spent discussing where the children had hidden “Jack” and the details of his location. The second paragraph with the phrase informs on what the children believe to be trapped inside and how evil they believed it to be. Both of the paragraphs are completely from the perspective of them as children with no indication that they would be growing up. The third, and changed, time the phrase appears is when the story begins to shift. The paragraph talks about “when they grew up and left the great house” the place where the mysterious box was hidden was locked up and basically forgotten about. From this point on in the story, it is focused on their lives as adults and the generally negative things that occurred to them. 

The other case of repetition throughout this short story is the use of negative words that begin with “n”. The author continuously uses the words “nobody”, “not”, “never” and “no”. The recuse of these negative words, with negative connotations, gives this story an even more negative tone than it already has. The story’s contents alone are dark and negative; a toy that controlled and haunted their childhood, death, arson, and a mental institution. Saying what things were “not” instead of what they were, what “nobody” did instead of what somebody did, and what they did “not” know instead of what they did, added even more negativity to the already dark storyline. The “n” words did not just add negativity, but they added to the mystery of the box. The first “nobody” used starts out the entire short story. It is used to say that nobody knew where the jack-in-the-box had come from, which begins the story with a mystery. The unknowingness of it’s origin added to the children’s curiosity and fear of the box. The first time “not” was used in the story, it is the first time Jack is being personified and also describing that he “could not be released from his box”. The fact that he was locked away, made the children believe he was evil and also make them even more curious because they did not even know what he looked like. This was also the first time the box is talked about in a negative tone. The second time the word “not” was used, was the first time the phrase “the children did not play with it” appears. There is no explanation for why they did not play with it, which continues with the theme of mystery and negativity. This “not” is saying the children did not play with a toy, which means there has to be something wrong with it because kids will basically play with anything. When “never” was used for the first time, it was used to describe how the children spent large amounts of their time and energy thinking, talking, and fantasizing about “Jack”, but they had “never seen him”. Not knowing what was really inside there made it mysterious to the children and never seeing him was a negative thing because they obviously really wanted to. 

The author, Neil Gaiman, used the literary device of repetition throughout his short story to intensify the mystique to the jack-in-the-box. He did this by repeating the phrase “The children did not play with it” and words that had a negative connotation and began with the letter “n”. He used these words and phrase to show the fear and unknowingness of the children when it came to the jack-in-the-box. 
