I know many will disagree, but I think “The Giving Tree” is a book with a very negative message.
If you are not familiar with Shel Silverstein’s book, it is a children’s tale about a boy and a tree. They love each other. The boy repeatedly asks the tree for things - apple, lumber, shade - and the tree always obliges, because she loves the boy. As time passes, and the boy becomes a man, then an old man, the tree is reduced to a stump, having given everything it had to give. Even then, the old man (boy) uses what’s left of the tree as a place to sit and rest.
Upon first read, it seems to be a tale of selflessness and unconditional love. Well, it is, but it’s one-sided. The boy never gives anything to the tree. He’s a selfish little shit, is what he is.
“The Giving Tree”? Hows about “The Taking Boy”?
mmm
I agree with you. My brother gave that book to my daughter when she was little and I read it to her all the time. I never did see the point of it. It advocates letting yourself to be a doormat and show complete deference to another even when it comes down to physical violence against you.
From what I can tell, it best serves as a how-to manual on being a good battered spouse.
Unconditional and selfless love is still unconditional and selfless if it is unrequited. The book doesn’t glorify the boy’s behavior, just the tree’s.
Or, put another way, the tree is able to love something that often doesn’t (and may never) love her back. It’s an ideal to aspire to, I think, and a worthwhile lesson.
I don’t. There are plenty of people like the boy in the world. Allowing them a free pass to take advantage of you and take everything you have is just dumb and not admirable at all.
I really don’t get this - the main characters in the story are a young child and an adult tree. The child is the “taker”, not the adult, so the “abused children” parallel doesn’t fit. The child and tree clearly aren’t husband and wife, so the “battered wives” notion doesn’t work either.
It’s pretty clearly a child/parent relationship to me - a parent who gives all of themselves for their child’s happiness and even when they are all used up (as, inevitably, we all will be - parents or not) their sadness comes from not having more to give to their child. And then their moment of gratification when the child chooses to sit with them for awhile.
I think children readers are plenty smart enough to see that the child in the story asks for too much without giving enough thanks to the tree. That’s part of the lesson too.
You’re not the first to say so. We’ve had at least one other thread about it. I thought there were more threads about it, but maybe I’m remember posts in discussions of books with bad messages and things like that. I continue to be very surprised by this interpretation of the book. I always thought it was primarily about love and willingness to give, probably from the point of view of a parent. Also, what’s a boy supposed to give a tree exactly? Water and mulch (which it already gets from nature, otherwise it wouldn’t have survived into treehood)?
Shel Silverstein was a twisted dude. He didn’t write the story to teach kids a lesson on how they should be giving. He wrote the story because he wanted to tell a story. He tells a story of a giving tree that destroys itself to make a selfish boy happy, but can’t make the boy happy no matter how much it gives. Eventually the tree is reduced to a stump and the boy is a miserable old man.
Where exactly does the story tell kids they should be like the tree? Or contrariwise, they should be like the boy?
It seems perfectly clear to me that in the story the perfect selflessness of the tree leads to disaster. The more the tree gives, the more the boy becomes spoiled, selfish, and miserable. This isn’t a book that celebrates giving everything to make others happy.
Of course, the book doesn’t spell out any particular moral, or explicitly tell the reader how to feel about the story. So it’s reasonable for people to misread the story as a celebration of perfect love, because it doesn’t contain an Aesopian epigram explaining itself. That doesn’t mean they’re right though.
His time and love–spending time with the tree when he DIDN’T need something.
If there were scenes of the tree and the kid sharing quality time between the times the kid needed something, it would be a healthy parent/child relationship. But the kid disappears for years, only to show up when he needs something and can loot from the tree. (Like a parent who gives their retirement fund the their kid and ends up in the street)
Wow, this is why every movie made nowadays is spelled out completely. You guys have no ability ot pick up the subtleties.
Everybody get in a circle and I will explain it.
The book is not a How-to book. It isn’t saying - “Be like the child and take, take, take.” Nor is it saying “Be like the tree and give, give, give, give.”
It is showing a very common parent-offspring relationship problem. Maybe your relationship with your parents isn’t like this… and maybe your relationship with your children isn’t like this. So good for you! You are lucky! There is a common situation where children just take from there parents… and never mature past that. In some ways the parents become enablers… out of love for their kids.
The book isn’t a hard-news expose. It is a melancholy look at love. Its a subtle message to kids to NOT be like that. Don’t use your parents.
Then people would say it’s the story of a loner who hangs around with trees instead of other people and the boy probably grows up to be a serial killer or an ecoterrorist. On some level I think we have to acknowledge that this is a story about a boy and a tree, not a boy and another person. Their relationship is analogous to some human relationships but it’s not a relationship between two people.
Yeah, that’s true. And in fact maybe the ambiguity here was part of the appeal of the story for him.
I haven’t read the book in some time but I don’t recall him being miserable. And to address one of Fenris’ other points, he doesn’t take anything from the tree on his last visit or ask anything of it: it’s just a stump and he spends time with the stump. He’s arguably still using it but he’s not taking anything.
It certainly doesn’t celebrate anything given the sad or bittersweet ending. That doesn’t make it the tale of a sociopath either.
I don’t remember what I thought the message was at the time… I do remember the book making me feel sad and a little uncomfortable. I certainly didn’t feel that there was any kind of inherent lesson involved.
I loved that book, though. I still do. And it still makes me sad and a little uncomfortable, which I reckon is just fine.
Not his final visit, but in his penultimate visit, the boy says “I am too old and sad to play”, and “I want a boat to take me far away from here.”, which is how he gets the trunk of the tree. Plus, his previous visit was to get materials for a house so he can have a wife and children, yet they’re apparently out of the picture now, or his plan to obtain them was fruitless. But he’s definitely pretty miserable.
It’s a book for children describing their parents’ love. It’s not a primer for how to be a child.
Man, have you read that “Green Eggs & Ham” book? I mean, it advocates harassing and browbeating people into doing something they never wanted because you’re so sure it’ll be best for them no matter how many times they say “no”. Who wants kids like that, right?
On some level I think we have to acknowledge that this is a story about a boy and a tree, not a boy and another person. Their relationship is analogous to some human relationships but it’s not a relationship between two people.