The House That Crack Built

"The House That Jack Built" has been traced back to a Hebrew chant first published in a 1590 edition of the Haggada and is often used in parody. The Opies trace almost two centuries of such parodies, proving that this version is one in a long line of political uses of this cumulative tale.

The House That Crack Built features contemporary hip hop or rap rhythms and powerful images to trace those involved in the drug trade and to emphasize that all of society is affected by and forced to "live in the house that crack built." The simplicity and understatement of both text and illustration compel readers to bring their own understandings to the meanings conveyed.

The first image of "the house," for instance, appears to be just a large, somewhat isolate dwelling representing affluence. This is followed by "the man" who, with his briefcase, appears to be an ordinary businessman. Those young people already aware of the crack trade bring oppositional meanings to these images while more unsuspecting readers are caught by surprise when the third line introduces "the soldiers who guard the man."

The illustration opposite the page introducing the line "This is the drug known as cocaine," on the other hand, leaves little room for ambiguity. The exchange of a stack of fifty dollar bills for bags of white powder is familiar to all who watch television or read newspapers. By this time also, the cumulative effect of the rhyme is building the impact of the message.

This is the Drug known as cocaine, made from the Plants that people can't eat, raised by the Farmers who work in the heat and fear the Soldiers who guard the Man who lives in the House that crack built.

A deceptively powerful image is that of "Baby with nothing to eat." Who, at first glance, appears to be a normal, healthy child who just happens to be crying at the moment. It is the hand, holding the smoking crack pipe entering the upper right quadrant of the picture (presumably that of "the Girl who's killing her brain, smoking the Crack that numbs the pain,") that places this image in a predictably horrific context.

Yet again, Mother Goose flies into the midst of a social and political issue that impacts the lives of the everyday folk who have kept her alive for more years than even she can remember.