The dark side of The Giving Tree

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Sage

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Even when I was a kid The Giving Tree bugged me. I couldn't have put the word "abusive" to it then, but that's how I saw it. The little boy just kept taking and the tree just kept giving. It bothered me that it seemed to be portrayed as positive and yet it clearly wasn't.
 

mccardey

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Even when I was a kid The Giving Tree bugged me. I couldn't have put the word "abusive" to it then, but that's how I saw it. The little boy just kept taking and the tree just kept giving. It bothered me that it seemed to be portrayed as positive and yet it clearly wasn't.

Funny thing is, I loved it when my kids were tiny (say - up to 20 months). After that I thought - yeah - no. There's a fair bit of unhealthy entitlement happening...

I do think its popularity was very much a product of its time and its culture. It wouldn't do so well now, I think.
 
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BenPanced

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Kind of what happened to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. It was once a fable for standing out and being yourself. Now it's about bullies who win in the end because their target caves when they're in trouble and he's the only who can help.
 

gingerwoman

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Kind of what happened to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. It was once a fable for standing out and being yourself. Now it's about bullies who win in the end because their target caves when they're in trouble and he's the only who can help.

My novel Wicked Wonderland is an erotic retelling of that story. :D Is that OK to say in a thread about kids' books?
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Re reading horrifying tales to kids, my first thought was my parents didn't do that, but then I remember I was terrified by a long playing record of Hansel and Gretel, but wanted to listen to it again and again despite being terrified (more by the music than anything else)

And also my mother had a book of Grims' Fairytales and I wanted to hear The Goose Girl, and The Red Shoes a second time, and my mother would say how terrible and gory they were, and I didn't really even understand what she meant by that I was just fascinated by them. The didn't scare me like pieces of music did.
 
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Chrissy

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Here's my take, having just read it for the first time (thanks for the link, benbradley):

There's no allegory. It's a tree. It didn't actually say any of those things, because trees and humans can't communicate with each other.

So.

Stop raping the planet in your lame, ineffectual attempts to be "happy," you stupid, selfish humans! At the very least, don't justify your pillaging with claims the trees are all fine and dandy with you cutting them all down!

:D

I'm mostly kidding. But I was raised in a conservative Christian home where it was taught the earth was made "for us" and we were given "dominion" over all the other creatures, so that's were my (admittedly literal) mind went. Frame of reference can be fun. :D
 

E.Murray

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Great discussion. This is the best testament I've seen to the book's brilliance. It has a way of magnifying our own character. One sees it as a picture of real love (i.e. real love doesn't stop at anything to fulfill the beloved). Another sees as a raping of the planet. Somebody else sees it as an abusive relationship. Or pure evil. And a valid argument could be made for any of those. Great literature has a way of revealing the natural conclusion of our own deepest-held hopes, fears and beliefs. I daresay it's not the book that is messed up; it's us.
Also, I agree with the folks who've said that kids have a way of taking the story at face value. I remember reading this as a kid and being intrigued. It didn't make me more selfish. It didn't make me more selfless. It didn't make me more or less able to love unreservedly. But it did make me think about the issues. I read it to my kids for that reason.
 
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