The Giving Tree

[prog]

Via jadelennox, I learn that The Giving Tree, one of my beloved books from childhood, has a great deal of controversy around it and is actually reviled by some children's literature scholars, herself included.

I find the controversy both surprising and interesting, but I think this is the first time I've seen a book I hold so dear (there are very few) get attacked like this. I put up a little defense for it in that thread, but seeing all the other commenters pour righteous scorn on it makes me feel queasy, as if all these people were rushing in to talk about how my Aunt Jan was actually a pirate who molested them as children or something. Bad news.

Comments

[kahuna-burger.livejournal.com]

Well there is a certain... user feel to the boy when you read it as an adult. At first he loves the tree as herself, but as the story progresses its all about what she can do for him. Never what he can do for her, which at first is only give her love, but later there isn't even any real show of gratitude. The happy ending is that she has one more thing to give to him, and that makes her feel good, not that he ever returns anything.

Not to say that I don't still have a soft spot for the book, but its a soft spot that wars with my intellect. Like listening to Angel in the Centerfold and having my enjopyment of the song occasionally intruded on by thinking about the lyrics.

[jtroutman.livejournal.com]

I have this book, and I have read it to my kids on several occasions. The Boy and the Tree do seem to have a rather one-sided relationship (all giving by the Tree). There are many interesting takes on this story, as you have pointed out.

I do note when I have read it to my kids, I have asked them what they think and if the boy should have done anything different. My older son has said that the boy should have been more polite and done more for the tree.

I think the discussion of the various implications of the story are at least as interesting as the story itself.

[spatch]

The smartest person out of all those smarty textbrick-writin' people was the person who asked his six-year-old son what he thought of the book.

Spare me the arguments on gender roles and self-entitlement with "the king of the forest" and all that. The tree loves the boy and wants to make the boy happy, and the boy knows the tree loves him and will support him all she can.

Maybe there's a hint of codependency in there, but honestly, you can claim that on any relationship built on giving.

[jadelennox]

Well, I may be smarty textbrick-writin' people now, but when I was 7 and 8, and not smarty textbrick-writin' in any way, I found the boy's relationship with the tree to be incredibly upsetting. It didn't, at that age, read like any love I'd ever be comfortable receiving.

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

yeah, I remember feeling uncomfortable and confused when I read that book as a child. Maybe that was supposed to be the point? But it definitely rang very wrong for me. At some point when I got older, I think I wondered if it was supposed to be one of those religious allusions that I also never understood. I've been cynical all my life.

[aspartaimee.livejournal.com]

agreed. it resonated wrong to me when i first read it as well, at that age.

[rserocki.livejournal.com]

I don't think I ever read the whole book (I know it's not long) and I saw just part of the cartoon version, but I remember thinking it was sad to me.

[chocorisu.livejournal.com]

I haven't read the book in full but I get the gist of it. I'm quite astounded by the degree with which people dislike it, and other children's books. This is the worst book anyone could give a child kind of opinions.

It seems to me that it's far better to expose a child to a wide range of opinions and stories, than attempt to program them with one set of morals. Real life is not that simple and it's better they're prepared to deal with the fact that most people have really peculiar moral values.

Honestly, it's like every book has to be the absolute truth and nothing but. I can't imagine where THAT idea comes from, oh wait, yes I can.

[jadelennox]

Children's lit scholars absolutely don't try to program children with one set of morals, and don't advocate censorship. What we do like to do is point to places in the much-loved and unexamined books given to children where maybe a little examination would not be amiss.

[chocorisu.livejournal.com]

I certainly don't disagree with that. I'm all for parents examining the things they give their kids, to the point that I can't believe anyone would do otherwise! No criticism of literary scholars intended at all.

I was merely surprised by how many people were saying "I HATE THAT BOOK" or words to that effect. That is not very scholarly :o)

[aspartaimee.livejournal.com]

but i really do hate it. i am not a scholar, but do work in publishing. does that count? ;)

[jadelennox]

For the record, there are books I love which I find very problematic -- Horse and His Boy, Little Princess. I'm good at loving them and compartmentalizing the troubling until later, though.

[radtea.livejournal.com]

Dreadful book. My kids (and I) love Silverstein's poetry, and I bought that book for them way back when. We read it once, and then again a few days later to confirm that it really was as dreadful as it seemed on first reading. The kids were ambivalent about it--did't hate it, but certainly didn't have any special affection for it. I put it quietly away.

The tree gives everything. The boy/man/old-man takes everything. The end.

Yuck.

I never got the tree as feminine, so that part simply sailed by, but really, people who focus on the nominal gender roles as more important than the moral situation are missing the point. Plenty of men have willingly sacrificed everything, knowing that their only monument will be a far away tomb that respresents the remains that were never recovered from the mud.

But the unquestioning sacrifice and acceptance of that sacrifice int the book struck me as morally doubtful then and even moreso now. You don't have to mix the argument up with irrelevant issues of gender stereotyping to see that.

[aspartaimee.livejournal.com]

nicely said. the only disagreement i have is that the gender issues are not necessarily irrelevant. that's not to say the roles can't be reversed and males can't be taken advantage of or sacrifice beyond what's healthy in relationship, but the tree is clearly referred to as "she," so i think it means something.

i think this goes to show that it's wrong on a number of levels, demonstrating the worst tendencies in relationships: giver/taker, male/female, parent/child people/environment. it could be that silverstein meant it this way, who knows? but now it's in the collective consciousness as a "classic" and therefore "good." and it isn't.

where the sidewalk ends, on the other hand, is an exceptionally brilliant work.

[radtea.livejournal.com]

I was going to argue that the gender issue is irrelevant because you could swap the gender roles and the story would be just as bad (which is true) but in fairness I think the thing that irritates me about the gender-based analysis is that I have yet to see anyone arguing that the story is bad because it promotes the view that males are fundamentally dependent and incapable creatures (I haven't read the full wikipedia article, so maybe I'm missing that somewhere). If you swap the gender roles you'll see that if the boy was a girl and the tree was portrayed as male, the first gender-based critique that leaps to mind is one about female dependence.

A gender-fair analysis would be quick to make the same point about the boy in the story as written, and anyone who knows college-age men who can't cook a meal or do laundry or keep house knows that the presumed incapacity of men is an important real-world gender issue, albeit not as important as the millenia old traditions of "glory" that have put so many millions of young men into anonymous graves.

There is value in service

[taskboy3000.livejournal.com]

Like many here, I read /The Giving Tree/ as a kid, but what I took away was a little different that what most have latched on to.

I strongly oppose the reading of this work as a gender study. Not only is that too facile to be meaningful, it's not well supported by the actual book. The reader must bring a world of baggage to manuscript to milk a misogynistic message out of the manuscript. Frankly, I'm pretty tired of criticism that illuminates "hidden" messages of hate in works of art when real examples of unambiguous bile are plentiful. But, each will have his own hobbies.

Silerstein's work illustrates a value that has been pretty well eroded by modern culture: the value of service to others. It may well be that you and I are not comfortable to the degree that the tree is prepare to go to pursue this goal of service, but in other contexts, this is extraordinary act of sacrifice is accepted and often expected. Imagine if the tree were cast as a doctor administering to the poor for his entire life. In old age, he would be poor and probably alone, but his life's goal would still have been achieved. His service, if fully pursued, would use up all of his resources, physical and otherwise. Silverstein's story can also be cast into military terms very easily, where the sacrifice of the tree is lauded as heroic.

To me, the Tree is the kind of everyday hero who is all around us, invisibly doing what they can for the rest of us without waiting for a "thanks."

[dougo.livejournal.com]

The problem I have is with the jump from "demonstrating the worst tendencies in relationships" to "wrong". Are you saying that nothing bad should be depicted in a children's book without unambiguous condemnation of it? I don't think that is what you're saying, but I can't figure out what your actual criticism of the book is about.

My memory of '60s and '70s children's lit (and TV and movies etc) is that ambiguity and nonjudgementalness was the norm, and the subject matter was often dark or sad or just opaque or contrary. But if it is thought-provoking, and gets at some sort of underlying truth, I think it can have merit without having a clear positive moral. The fact that the Giving Tree has been interpreted in so many different ways seems to indicate that it does encapsulate a truth, or many truths, ugly or confusing as they may be.

[popecrunch.livejournal.com]

I try to be a good UU and give equal time and consideration to all ideas and opinions but this controversy is giving my baloney meter stretch marks. If you squint just right you can use it as a metaphor for the message that sometimes unconditional love isn't very rewarding, and that being an unpleasant fact doesn't make it LESS of a fact or even a meaningless one. Is it a book that should be given to a kid in your care without any discussion or screening by the parent/guardian/captor? No. But then again, such things do not exist. Just because it's made of paper and not television doesn't mean it's any better of a mindless timefiller or babysitter. TALK TO YOUR CHILDREN PEOPLE IT IS NOT THAT HARD

[kahuna-burger.livejournal.com]

"giving my baloney meter stretch marks."

"If you squint just right you can..."

I'm honestly curious.... Do you expect anyone to give your opinions weight with this sort of dismissiveness? I can't say that being essentially accused of "creating" a view rather than coming to it naturally and insulted for thinking about what I read gives me any interest in your advice. And the idea that people do not talk to their children just because they also talk to other adults is a little... odd, I would say.

[popecrunch.livejournal.com]

Not particularly. I gave up expecting peoople to actually listen to my opinions on the internet ages ago in general. And specific to this instance, it would be rather hypocritical of me to do so when I couldn't wrap my head around the conflicting opinion in this scenario, so.

To answer your second point, it's been my experience (and I fully admit that this has a chance of being a statistical aberration) that the people shrieking 'So and so media is HORRIBLE FOR THE KIIIIIDS' the loudest seem to have some sort of allergy to screening things for their children and discussing concepts with them that they feel bear it. Again, I'm not saying you do or do not discuss things with your hypothetical or actual kid and/or kids, just that's what my experience has led me to expect.

I'm also casually interested in mapping the 'Good book or book that should be discussed' vs 'Bad book don't let them read it' against people who have children vs. people who don't. Maybe there's a correlation, maybe there isn't. Hmm.