The Giving Tree

Storyline:

'Once there was a tree...and she loved a little boy.'

Every day the boy would come to the tree to eat her apples, swing from her branches, or slide down her trunk...and the tree was happy. But as the boy grew older he began to want more from the tree, and the tree gave and gave and gave.

Review:

This is a tender story and touched with sadness. The needy boy portraits the human existence, selfish, greedy and insatiable entity who constantly receives. The tree portraits the idea of parenting, the selfless giver or merely self-sacrificing.

Some academic readers describing the book as portraying a one-sided relationship between the tree and the boy. Indeed, some of these speakers single the tree out as an irresponsible parent whose self-sacrifice has left the boy ill-equipped. Other readers argue that the tree gives everything to the boy freely because she loves him, and its feelings are reciprocated by the boy when he returns to the tree for a rest. In this way, the relationship between the tree and the boy as he grows up could be viewed as similar to that between a mother and her child; despite getting nothing in return for a long time, the tree puts the boy's needs foremost, because it wants him to be happy. Indeed, the only time the tree ever seems to be sad is when it feels that it has nothing left to give the boy and that the boy might never return.

As Ben Jackson it:

“

Is this a sad tale? Well, it is sad in the same way that life is depressing. We are all needy, and, if we are lucky and any good, we grow old using others and getting used up. Tears fall in our lives like leaves from a tree. Our finitude is not something to be regretted or despised, however; it is what makes giving (and receiving) possible. The more you blame the boy, the more you have to fault human existence. The more you blame the tree, the more you have to fault the very idea of parenting. Should the tree's giving be contingent on the boy's gratitude? If it were, if fathers and mothers waited on reciprocity before caring for their young, then we would all be doomed.

”

Enjoy the complete story at here