Again, I’m new to this discussion, but yikes! Who knew children’s books could raise such ire? I imagine such strong responses have more to say about the reader than the book, but let’s set that aside for the moment. Holmes continues:
Of course, maybe we’re just projecting, but to those who would say that Silverstein’s book is a moving, sentimental depiction of the unyielding love of a parent for a child, I’d say, Learn better parenting skills. To those who defend it as a warts-and-all parable lamenting man’s inhumanity to man — or, perhaps, man’s inhumanity to woman — I’d say that I’m not so sure Silverstein, who dedicated the book to a former girlfriend, “Nicky,” was writing an indictment of what men assume they can get way with. The boy uses the tree as a plaything, lives off her like a parasite, and then, when she’s a shell of her former self and no longer serves any real purpose, he sits on her — which makes her happy? (“That book is the epitome of male privilege,” a friend groused.)
As for the argument that “The Giving Tree” is somehow a commentary on the ways humans ravage the environment, I mean, maybe?… It’s possible Silverstein was attempting to be subversive, and in that sense, this little Rorschach test of children’s literature seems to have succeeded.
So Holmes acknowledges that The Giving Tree doesn’t fit well into a handful of interpretive paradigms, admirably wrestling with the books implications while unable to make any connections. The Times also shared a reflection from fiction writer Rivka Galchen, who similarly struggled to find a connection with The Tree. Her response–both the tree and the child are flawed:
The boy and the tree are both “flawed,” and in the most old-fashioned way, their flaws, which are also their characters, determine their fates. The sadness one feels in reading this book so full of the word “happy” is not unlike the sadness of knowing just how it’s going to end up for poor Oedipus. “The Giving Tree” is in part a disturbing tale of unconditional love, in part a tender tale of the monsters that we are. When I read the book again these 30-some years later, my only brief reservation — that it should somehow have been funny, that funny might have saved it from its destiny of weird co-optings — faded. The book, too, has its fundamental character and fate. Silverstein would have made it funny, if that was what it was meant to be.
Both characters being flawed seems like a complexity that goes over a child’s head, so I’m inclined to disagree. Neither Galchen nor Holmes seem excited to celebrate the children’s literature classic, observing the book at arms length, which is understandable if your arsenal of critical lenses does not include any religious ones. We’ve made no secret that we think The Giving Tree is a divine metaphor, and even though Silverstein was at least nominally Jewish, we still think it’s the God who gave us trees to build crosses to nail his son to. We’ve brought some evidence along too, with our smoking gun being this anecdote given to us via the late great Brennan Manning (via a weekender last year and Donald Miller):
Brennan Manning, who passed away on Friday of last week, and Shel Silverstein met when they were young and according to Manning, stayed in touch. Later, after Shel began to write and Manning became a priest, they had a conversation about God and God’s love. Manning asked Silverstein what he thought God’s love felt like. Silverstein thought about it for a while but had no answer. Much later, Silverstein got in touch with Manning and gave him a copy of The Giving Tree saying the book was his answer to Manning’s question.
Cue the link to Will McDavid’s insightful contribution earlier this week about ideology and cultural engagement. I won’t pretend that I don’t think the NYT missed this one, though I won’t linger on it either. I’d rather take the moment to observe that, if you mess with the God and humanity angle of interpretation, The Giving Tree can become a disturbing exercise in masochism. If the tree is a parent and the child is a child, then you’re left with narcissistic children. If the tree is a woman and the child is a man, you’re left with misogyny of the highest degree. If the tree is a person of virtue and the child is another person, you’re left with a system of abuse. So again, it’s not like Holmes or Galchen should be blamed for their hesitation to approach the tree which freely gives of itself–that level of giving is foolish, costly, and unhealthy. I’ve heard people can die from giving of themselves so freely like that… The idea that someone could be wholeheartedly committed to the undeserving other is counter-intuitive and scandalous, and it’s not like a divine-tree changes that either.
If the tree is God, though, you’re still left with a message of melancholy, but not one that is masochistic so much as pessimistic. The parable becomes one of depravity, where the friend of sinners becomes a means to our selfish ends. It’s reminiscent of King David and Nathan, a prophetic Old Testament story where David outrage’s at a parable about a stolen lamb is turned around and used to expose his own guilt for stealing another man’s wife. Treating other humans like the tree is unconscionable–so what does that say about how we treat God? Certainly, nothing good. Thankfully, reducing God to a stump or nailing Him to a cross still isn’t enough to draw His ire. The destroyed offers rest and peace to its destroyer, as foolish as that may be.
I don’t know about you, but I’d rather extend Shel the courtesy of being a prophet then a masochist any day.
I never liked Shel Silverstein’s spare, twee little book, not the first time I read it, back in the late 1970s, or the second time, in the mid-1980s, or the third time, just a few weeks ago, in preparation for this column.
The Cross of Christ: “The (for)Giving Tree”.
[…] the first-century philosopher Seneca were to read Silverstein’s parable of divine love, he would have been appalled both by the boy’s disregard for the tree and the tree’s imprudent […]