I think the diversity of opinions in this thread make it clear, at least, how compelling it is as a work of art. Few so-called children’s stories would generate this much earnest discussion on an adult message board.
I adore Silverstein and have always liked this story, but the book’s personal meaning has become more nuanced as I get older.
The tree is my grandmother. She gave everything until there was nothing left, and even now, with nothing, she gives. Is it wrong? Maybe she is sick, maybe she will die because she allowed others to take advantage of her. I spent years trying to get her to choose differently, to give back, and she refused. The one time I dared to call her on it, our only fight ever, she stood up and said, ‘‘This is my right, this is who I am, this is what I was made to do.’’ The tree has no identity outside of sacrifice. But it was always her choice to make.
I don’t think the story is meant to communicate one particular moral or viewpoint. It’s just a parable about the way life is. Some people are the giving tree, some people are the boy, and some people, like me, are the silent witnesses struggling to make sense of it all.
I remember the story completely horrified me when I first heard it as a kid. I felt awful for the tree and hated the thoughtless boy. I think I heard it at school; I don’t remember talking about it with my parents although I’m sure I did.
I do like it now because of how creepy it is. It’s sort of like an old Fairy Tale in that respect.
As a kid I liked the story, it was read to us at around eight years old or so. I took away that I shouldn’t take advantage of my mother and appreciate her so she didn’t have to give everything up.
There’s a really good book “The Uses of Enchantment” by Bruno Bettleheim which goes into why the old fairy tales are good for children. They learn something from the stories even though it may not be on a fully conscious level. Quite often the stories ease the child’s brain into the reasoning that they will have to go out into the world one day on their own and solve a big problem. Knowing this as a kid can enable you to try to solve your own little problems.
My kids like the Silverstein books, although what aspect they are taking away from the Giving Tree I’m not sure, (and I wouldn’t ask because it might embarrass them). I can’t stand the spoon-fed stories and try to avoid reading those to them. There’s no danger in them, but also no reason for a child to think or put themselves in someone else’s perspective. They are over-sanitized.
What makes this book a great book is that it can be read with a child or parent viewpoint; or female/male; or human/deity; or humanity/mother earth.
I don’t think the reader should take the material things the tree gives so literally. Yes, in real life, that would be a raping of nature.
But the story is a fantastical allegory about 2 “beings” who are dependent on each other, yet are not matched equally in what they can give materially. They are however matched in what they can give immaterially, yet one was unselfish, and the other selfish. They go through phases of playing, give and take, “prodigal son”, and in the end resting and togetherness. The boy, at the end of his life, learns unselfishness. And, the tree in the story isn’t concerned about the real-world concerns a real tree would be (if it we sentient). The tree just wants the boy to love it for what it is. And that’s what happens, no matter what the boy had stripped from it.
The book is trying to teach us about unselfishness. This, fortunately has a happy ending. In real life, most don’t… because we are selfish.
The reason I now think that this story works (having read it) is that it raises legitimate questions about whether it is affirming or merely depicting the behavior of the two characters.
Are we the reader supposed to approve of these characters? Disapprove? Or simply empathize?
Those who hate the book seem to all be interpreting it the same way - that we are intended to approve of their behaviour, and that the behaviour is unhealthy. To my mind, the author simply intends for the reader to think about their behaviour, without drawing any morals himself.
I recognize that real-life tress die when you cut them down, but this isn’t a real-life tree. Those don’t have feelings. That’s the problem with connecting this story to sociopathy and co-dependency in the real world.
It depicts a hugely dysfunctional relationship. If it were just about a parent’s generosity and self-sacrifice for her kid, the story would have ended before the boy grew up. As it is, the boy becomes an adult, who no longer has his childishness to excuse his utter self-absorption, and yet the tree never says no, never sets boundaries, and lets the boy keep taking until there’s nothing left.
A good, giving parent would have thought to teach the child to be a considerate adult somewhere along the line. Instead the tree teaches him it’s perfectly okay for him to walk all over others if he wants to, and that others basically exist to serve his desires. What sh*tty parenting.
Tangentially, wasn’t Silverstein the one who also wrote some fetish poetry, or short prose, or something? I swear I read something like that.
Which might explain The Giving Tree, actually, if you visualize it as a (not-really-healthy) Master/slave relationship.
Think of it this way. Through the willful unselfishness the tree practiced on the boy, not only did it make the tree temporarily happy, but in the end, its unselfishness made the boy fashion the tree into something that gave the tree what it had been wanting all along.
No. The tree knew all along that the boy loved it. It also knew the boy was selfish, but willfully gave, knowing the love was underneath all that. It wasn’t until the tree had nothing left to give, that the boy finally came around. That’s the sacrifice it took, but the tree helped the boy, and at the end, the boy made the tree happy… for ever after.
He did lots of different things. I can’t seem to find an online cite for it, but I remember reading that he originally didn’t want his stuff published for children.
I didn’t say that from “it’s not being treated better” it follows that “it’s being treated worse.” Rather, I said “It’s being treated worse hence X, but anyway, as long as its simply not being treated better my original argument for X goes through.”
That seems to be the line that bothers people the most. I think you need to look at it in context. The whole passage is this:
Folks seem to be reading this as, “The tree is unhappy because she was cut down.” That’s not how I read it. In my view, the tree is happy, because she was still able to give the boy what he wanted. But she’s not really happy, because giving him the boat that he wanted means that he is going farther away from her than he’s ever been. She’s happy, because she’s still providing for him, but not really happy, because she wants to be with him more than anything else in the world.
That’s the second-to-last bit in the book. The last section, where he finally comes back, and all she can give him is a place to sit and rest, is when she’s truly happy again, because he is with her. Just look at how happy the tree is every time the boy comes back, and it’s clear that she loves being with him above all else.
Well, that’s kind of what I’m saying. The tree made itself a martyr, rather than setting boundaries. The boy didn’t “learn his lesson” until well beyond adulthood, when simply establishing that there’s a difference between accepting generosity and steamrolling over others to get what you want, would have allowed him to learn something valuable while still a child. Someone can both be giving and not be a doormat at the same time. And I think it does a child a huge disservice to neglect teaching them how to interact with others – they’re going to have to sooner or later, and if they can’t do it appropriately, someone’s going to suffer for it. To be blunt, no one should have to suffer because of someone else’s mistake, or worse, their willful abdication of responsibility. I know it happens all the time, I still think it’s crap when it does.
No one should be sucked absolutely dry before it occurs to the other to be less selfish. If the other doesn’t have the impulse to moderate himself on his own, then it’s up to the giver to set limits.
I’m not entirely convinced that the boy learned anything, either. The boy as an old man needed someplace to sit – is there really any more generous or loving motivation behind that than when he cut the tree down? Or is it just that he needed something different at this point in his life?
Look at all the back and forth the story has led to here. That wouldn’t happen with Red Fish, Blue Fish. I’m having dinner with my kids later tonight. I’ll try to remember to ask them if they remember the story.
“Fetish poetry?” He wrote an enormous variety of material, which included writing for Playboy and some other adult stuff. This does not make “The Giving Tree” an S&M story.
But, when you read this as a story for children, that distinction is not one that children will make. The book itself anthropomorphizes the tree – but it is still a tree. That is why some kids who read it are wigged out by the fact that this boy they’re supposed to identify with is chopping somebody up.
If we’re connecting the story to sociopathy and co-dependency, we’re talking about adults reading the story; children will never make that connection. And for adults, that allegory is certainly a valid one.
