Alternative Approaches - Look for Yourself

This illustration portrays a fairly contemporary couple with a thin Jack looking disgusted as he forks over some fat from his plate to his wife's. She is smiling and obviously "eyeing" her treat with great pleasure. In this image, Jack is more slovenly and unpleasant looking than his wife. But it does follow the traditional pattern of Mrs. Sprat being depicted as fat, and their sizes are further exaggerated by their positions in the picture: Jack is shown in profile while Mrs. Sprat is shown full-face. Notice the difference in their clothing. Jack's shirt is a cool blue with narrow vertical stripes while she is wearing a warm-colored dress decorated with round flowers. How then would you interpret the background color and the color and pattern of the tablecloth?

Other depictions of this rhyme follow the pattern of the wife being fat and the husband thin. Even in the pop-up Movable Mother Goose, by Robert Sabuda, Jack is depicted as an elegantly attired flamingo, with spats and a bow tie, not eating at all, while his hippo wife, in an apron, literally devours a half dozen cupcakes. Another variation of the focus of the rhyme comes from The Mother Goose Book illustrated by Alice Provensen. In this scene, the Jack Sprat rhyme is shown on a two-page spread with about a dozen other rhymes about food. The characters are all sitting around a large banquet table, including Mrs. Sprat happily enjoying a plate full of "fatty" foods, steak, ham, sausage, etc. It is interesting to note that Jack is removed from the festivity of the feast because of his healthy eating habits, and he is shown off in a corner behind his wife, unhappily eating a carrot. In this illustration, the Sprats are wearing clothing appropriate to the time period depicted, the feast looking as though it might be an early pilgrim Thanksgiving. Still another variation observed, which seems to be unique, is in Granfa' Grig Had a Pig and Other Rhymes without Reason. This scene is also a banquet, attended by formally attired animals. Here the Sprats are depicted as dogs, complete with Jack's usual tuxedo and bow tie. What the illustrator focuses on, however, is the image of them licking the platter, which is obviously socially unacceptable behavior. The Sprats are viewed with surprise and disgust by the other guests, as they literally lick the platter clean at the table.