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By Root 5313 0

library was a `subversive book' and should be banned. To discuss this the lady chairman has invited along two professors, a Marxist and a Freudian. The Marxist explains that Jack and the Beanstalk is indeed a political tract, nothing less than `a blueprint for world revolution'. As typical members of the downtrodden rural proletariat in a post-feudal society, Jack and his mother are reduced to such poverty that they are finally forced in desperation to sell the only asset they possess, their cow. The only place they can sell it is on the free market, inevitably used by the rich to exploit the poor. Naturally all Jack gets in return is a worthless handful of beans. But these symbols of their exploitation grow up into `the mighty beanstalk of the workers' movement'; and when Jack climbs to the top, what does he find but the wicked giant of `international monopoly capitalism: Eventually he strikes the revolutionary blow which brings the tyranny crashing down. Having won this glorious victory, the proletariat, represented by Jack and his mother, win the right to live happily ever after.

While this dissertation is proceeding, the Freudian impatiently interrupts to insist that this is just childish hooey. The true meaning of jack and the Beanstalk is that it is no more than `the simple, rather touching story of a young boy's sexual awakening'. Like any small boy, Jack lives with the person who is closest to him in the world, his mother. But the day comes when he must move on from his initial state of infantile dependence on mother, symbolised by the milk-giving cow. This is when he discovers that he has in his hand beans, `seminal essences, from which there rises up in front of him `this thrusting, enormous, towering ...'. `Ye-a-a-s', hastily interjects the lady chairman. Climbing up this symbol of his awakening manhood, the Freudian continues, what does Jack find at the top but the `non-improjected fantasy image of Father'. `Father' naturally rejects this challenge to his masculine authority and tries to drive him back down the beanstalk. But eventually our hero hits back by grabbing an axe to eliminate 'Father', so that, in line with his Oedipal urge, he can return to live with mother happily ever after.

Increasingly bemused by the force of the two rival interpretations, the lady chairman sums up by telling the audience that, thanks to their two speakers, `we now all realise that Jack and the Beanstalk is not only subversive. It is also very dirty, and should definitely be taken off our library shelves'.I

Obviously what was striking about this sketch was how it brought out such a startling correspondence between the story of Jack and the Beanstalk and two of the most influential thought-systems of the twentieth century. But was it possible, I reflected as I watched the sketch, that there might be some deeper reason for these coincidences? Might there be some fundamental structure underlying the way we think about the world which could account for this seemingly remarkable overlap between Marx's analysis of society, Freudian psychology and a centuriesold folk tale? Indeed we can now see that there is an archetypal structure under lying all of them. And in terms of what this really signifies, in terms of human psychology, we can see how the `Freudian interpretation, for all its inadequacies, does in fact gets rather closer than the Marxist's to the true underlying meaning of the tale. The story of Jack is indeed rooted in that pattern central to storytelling, showing the pattern of a young man's growing up to maturity. Where the Freudian interpretation begins to fall short, however, is in its inability to recognise the true nature of the giant/Dark Father, as representing the negative version of the Light Father the young hero must eventually become. With its distortingly narrow focus on sexuality, Freudian psychology cannot then offer any proper explanation of the treasures Jack wins from the giant. And although the Freudians may get very excited by the fact that Jack returns at the end to live with mother, they cannot see