Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree

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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

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