Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree

862 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Summary of the giving tree shel silverstein

The Giving Tree is a story about a tree that is willing to give up anything to a boy to make him happy, even giving up her whole body. For example, the boy needed to build a house that required all of the tree’s branches, so she gave him all of her branches. After he builds his house, he wants to make a boat that would take him far away. She gave him her trunk to make the boat. She was happy to help him, but she also felt he was taking advantage of her. In The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein uses a boy and a tree to explain the effects of selfless love and selfish love.
The tree loved the boy so much and wanted nothing more than to make him happy. The Tree is showing selfless love in order to make someone besides herself happy. The story …show more content…

He then left again for another long period of time. When he finally returned he only thought about building a house. So the Tree gave to him again by giving him the branches off of her. Then the boy left again and didn’t come back until he needed something else. This time he wanted a boat. The tree could only offer him her trunk to build the boat. The boy never said thank you to the Tree so the Tree felt sad because of this. The boy showed selfish love because he knew that the Tree would do anything to make him happy and so he took advantage of the Tree.
The Tree shows selfless love like a mother would show selfless love to their child.
The story shows that the Tree cares for the boy and loves him very much. It’s very much like a mom loves her son. She will do anything to make him happy. There are several examples in the story that demonstrate this. One example is when the boy wants to build a house, the Tree offered him her branches to build the house. This selfless act is exactly how a mother would act when their child is in need. Throughout the story, the Tree seems to live for making the boy happy. However, the boy is no longer happy with just playing on the tree and he desires to make a life for

Show More
Related

  • Loss of Innocence

    1336 Words  | 3 Pages

    Knowles foreshadows the boys’ loss of innocence through the war, and their constant jumps from the tree. While getting ready for the war the boys practice and show off their skills on the tree by the Devon River. These jumps are done for fun yet the boys see them as a routine, something that has to be done. Knowles brings the theme of the loss of innocence in the novel for the first time by portraying Finny as the defender who gets the boys out of trouble by saying they had to jump out of the tree (22). This foreshadows how the innocence of the boys will be banished from themselves and their world. The tree also symbolizes the Forbidden Tree of Knowledge. Just like it is forbidden to eat the fruit, jumping from the tree was not allowed as well. By jumping from the tree the boys symbolically accept their loss of innocence, just like Adam and Eve accepted theirs.

    Read More

  • Courage For His Father In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

    809 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout the novel the feelings the man has for his son are sacred; the man makes great sacrifices for his son to continue to live and have a future in a world that has been devastated and stripped of all humanity. The boy is the only source of light for

    Read More

  • Analysis of the Poem Black Walnut Tree by Mary Oliver

    756 Words  | 2 Pages

    The tree “swings through another year of sun and leaping winds, of leaves and bounding fruit.” This sentence evokes images of happiness and serenity; however, it is in stark contrast with “month after month, the whip-crack of the mortgage.” The tone of this phrase is harsh and the onomatopoeia of a “whip crack” stirs up images of oppression. The final lines of the poem show the consequences that the family accepts by preserving the tree—their family heritage. When the speaker judges the tree by its cover she sees monetary value, but when she looks at the content in the book she find that it represents family. Even though times may be tough for the family, they are united by memories of their ancestors.

    Read More

  • A tree grows in brooklyn

    1576 Words  | 4 Pages

    Betty Smith’s novel A Tree Grows In Brooklyn is a tale of poignant family relationships and childhood and also of grim privation. The story revolves around the protagonist of the story, young Francie Nolan. She is an imaginative, endearing 11-year-old girl growing up in 1912, in Brooklyn, New York. The entire story revolves around Francie and the Nolan family, including her brother Neelie, her mother Katie and her father Johnny. An ensemble of high relief characters aids and abets them in their journey through this story of sometimes bleak survival and everlasting hope. As we find out, the struggle for survival is primarily focused against the antagonist of this story, the hard-grinding poverty afflicting Francie, the Nolan’s and Brooklyn itself. The hope in the novel is shown symbolically in the “The “Tree of Heaven””. A symbol used throughout the novel to show hope, perseverance and to highlight other key points.

    Read More

  • A Doll's House Symbolism Essay

    1088 Words  | 3 Pages

    The play opens up with the Christmas tree being symbolic. The tree symbolizes Nora’s position in the Helmer household. The tree can also symbolize Nora’s personality. In the play the Christmas tree is a materialistic object used only for

    Read More

  • The Giver, by Lois Lowry

    1176 Words  | 3 Pages

    “The Giver” a novel by Lois Lowry (1993), is an, engaging science fiction tale that provides the reader with examples of thought provoking ethical and moral quandaries. It is a novel geared to the young teenage reader but also kept me riveted. Assigning this novel as a class assignment would provide many opportunities for teachers and students to discuss values and morals.

    Read More

  • Research Paper On A Tree Grows In Brooklyn

    995 Words  | 2 Pages

    "No matter where its seed fell, it made a tree which struggled to reach the sky. It grew in boarded-up lots, and out of neglected rubbish heaps and it was the only tree that grew out of cement. It grew lushly, but only in the tenement districts."(Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, pg. 6). This is a quote from Betty Smith's novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The quote is a great metaphor for the story, which is about a young girl named Francie and her life as she grows up in poverty during the early 1900's. Even so, while children, and most people in general, had hard lives then, there was still good to be fond around them. Not everything in their lives had to be bad so long as they didn’t want it to be.

    Read More

  • The Tree it Literary Works: Annotated Bibliography

    2454 Words  | 5 Pages

    I am exploring the embodiment of the chestnut tree by Yeats in “Among School Children.” Yeats becomes gloomy and nostalgic when he is among the children due to his realization that he is significantly aged, and in this poem, he looks to a chestnut tree for wisdom, for an answer. I think that the tree signifies strength, beauty, and resilience. I would like to show how the symbolism of trees is significant and perhaps show that the tree is intimately important to Yeats by showing that the tree signifies unrequited love.

    Read More

  • Theme Of A Tree Grows In Brooklyn

    1046 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Tree of Heaven is crucial to the novel as it represents the lives of poor people and it also suggests that Francie will grow up to become much stronger despite her struggles surrounding her impoverished family. There are multiple references to trees in the first third of the story. Multiple character refer to the tree in order to talk about strength and the hardships of growing up. The setting of the story is also very important in shaping Francie as a character because it allows the audience to see Williamsburg through Francie’s eyes and create more of an understanding of her situation and feelings. In the beginning of the novel, it is also evident that Francie takes great pleasure in books and reading which displays her childlike wonder. The idea of imagination and childlike wonder is very important to Francie as a character because it shows the reader that even though she is in this very difficult situation, she is still a young child having to deal with people in her community shaming her family. Mary Rommely, Katie’s mother, also discusses the importance of imagination with her just after Francie is born. She tells her “the child must have a valuable thing which is called imagination. The child must have a secret world in which live things that never were. It is necessary that she believe.” The theme of gender difference is also an important part of the story. Normally in a household, the man would be in charge of the house and finances, but because of Johnny’s alcohol problem, Katie must become much stronger and take control in the house. After Francie is born and Katie is having her discussion with her mother, Mary grows upset because she believes being born a woman leads to a life of

    Read More

  • The Physical and Emotional Horrors that Slaves Suffer

    555 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the first chapter of the novel, Morrison introduces tree symbolism by mentioning the scars on that Sethe bears on her back from being whipped. When Sethe tells Paul D. about her scars, she says, "I got a tree on my back...A chokecherry tree" (Morrison 18). Sethe was given these scars during an extremely traumatic and agonizing part of her life, when she was a slave at Sweet Home. Although these scars, which she received eighteen years ago, will forever be a reminded of the unpleasant memories ...

    Read More

  • Political Messages in The King of Trees

    1157 Words  | 3 Pages

    Symbolism plays a key role in the novella in allowing the author to relay his political ideals. In The King of Trees, Cheng uses many elements of nature to represent both revolutionary and counter-revolutionary ideas. The king of trees - and trees in general - throughout the novella is a symbol of counter-revolutionary ideals, and the older Chinese customs. Li Li, and in turn, the followers of Mao Zedong/the Red Guard, believe that “In practical terms, old things must be destroyed” (Cheng 43). This is shown through the felling of the trees – getting rid of the Old Chinese cus...

    Read More

  • The Great Spirit: A Moral Capstone

    392 Words  | 1 Pages

    You already know that the story is a myth on how people had hopes for the natural world. Then it all came down to the Great Spirit being the source all living things. Then it starts off by introducing you an ancient Chief wife who had a dream about a tree being uprooted. Unfortunately that was bad news for the chief, but he got others involved to make the dream a reality. The chief uprooted the tree and later on he figured out there was a whole in the tree.

    Read More

  • Anne Finch's Poems

    1032 Words  | 3 Pages

    In “The Tree,” the speaker talks to a tree and express thanks for its “delightful shade” (1). The speaker goes on to talk of the others who benefited from the existence of the tree and gave it something back in return, such as the birds singing, travelers praising it’s welcome shade, and nymphs making crowns from its blooms. The speaker wonders what she can do to repay the shade given her by the tree. She decides to wish something for the tree’s future. She wishes, “To future ages may’st thou stand / Untouch’d by the rash workman’s hand” (19 – 20). Ultimately, she wishes something such as “some bright hearth” (32) be made from the tree at its death.

    Read More

  • Irving Textual Analysis of "The Legend Of Sllepy Hollow"

    1707 Words  | 4 Pages

    The tree is almost created into somewhat of a creature.  With the limbs twisting out and rising into the air.  Irving takes ordinary earthlike objects and changes the perspective of them into imaginary matter.

    Read More

  • Use of Symbols in Ibsen's Play, A Doll's House

    860 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Christmas tree, a festive object meant to serve a decorative purpose, symbolizes Nora’s position in her household as a plaything who is pleasing to look at. Ibsen’s use of the Christmas tree is portrayed throughout the play. The Christmas tree symbolized Nora’s feelings. In the First act there is a festive tree with “pretty red flowers” and Nora comes in the house carelessly. Nora’s mood is festive and tree gives a merry glow to the reader. At the end of act 1, Nora has been threatened by krogstad that if she doesn’t help him keep the job, he will tell Torvald about the illegal loan. Torvald on the other hand believes that Krogstad “forged someone name” and will be fired. So in act II, the tree is striped of his ornaments. In the act the tree is dropping along with Nora’s Hope and Happiness. The tree helps the reader fell the anxiety of Nora’s feelings. A Christmas tree itself is a symbol for joy so that is why it is used. Through all times and even in the bible trees and flowers have been a subject of wonderment; a symbol of life, that is why Ibsen uses this as a symbol of Nora’s feelings.

    Read More

More about Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree

Open Document