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lorraine-pearson
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Once there was a tree. . .
and
she loved
a
little boy.
and
he
would
gather
her
leaves
And the tree was happy.
The End
Spitz’s Interpretation of The Giving Tree
• Presents troubling view of both mother and child through a nonreciprocal relationship
• Visual minimalism– repetition and reiteration create an aura of
myth
• Boy – Growing; demanding, insatiable and self-centered– Denies the independent existence of the tree (symbolically his mother)
• Tree– Gendered (Female)– Always agrees to the boy’s demands – Remains happy despite her being continually depleted by the boy– Alone solely when boy is away
• Child’s early fantasy of being sole object of mother’s love
• Presupposes eternal, all-encompassing symbiosis between mother and child.
• Static relationship– Despite growing, the boy is still referred to by the tree as a boy
The Mother-Son Relationship in The Giving Tree
The Giving Tree’s Example for Children
• nonreciprocal view of human relationships across genders and generations
• Giving Tree- child treats his mother as if he were indeed still an infant
• his mother takes part in her child’s fantasy through self-sacrifice and giving in to his every demand
• enjoys depleting self in order to please her child
Why Do we Enjoy The Giving Tree?
• Kindness, generosity of spirit, glorification of self sacrifice
• Spitz cannot accept this viewpoint- sees it solely as: “a mother who is lonely but happy, a mother who never protests; a mother who is, by the end of the book, reduced to a dead stump” (144).
• The tree is only happy when the boy happens to appear, and remains happy until he is gone, The boy never sees when the tree is unhappy.
• The boy NEVER admits his happiness because of the tree, and only admits his love for her when he is a small child.
• As the pictures of the tree progresses, the trunk becomes more frail, just as a human becomes more frail over time. The aging process is represented not only in the boy, but also in the tree before she is cut down. – Seen in the trunk (becomes wrinkled on the edges)– Seen in the position of trunk (becomes more slumped over)
Additional Notes
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