What did Shel Silverstein really mean to say with his book The Giving Tree? It is ostensibly about a lifelong friendship between a man and an apple tree. Actually, it is bad economics leading to a dangerous political bent, with the message that it is better to spend life giving than taking–if only the government could inculcate that value into the taxpayers! In fact, Silverstein’s theme was borrowed from Wilde, who wrote a much better story about a prince who gave back to the people what his family and class had stollen. [Full article]
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/2628/that-insufferable-giving-tree/
That Insufferable “Giving Tree”
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{ 27 comments }
I have, until now, been spared the absurdity of this “giving tree” story.
Thank you for the warning.
In different hands, the ending could have been that the boy-man realizes he took without trading, received without paying, and the dead tree is the inevitable result. Exactly like killing the goose that lays golden eggs to shortsightedly eat just one meal.
You must excuse the tree, it is in a persistent vegetative state.
But I am just unsure of the subject. The difference between a deep friendship, or even agape – sacrificial love, and codependency is one of intent.
Many don’t get “The Passion of the Christ” either because they understand nothing of Christianity – Christians see a very different movie.
The Giving tree may simply be a failed attempt at showing what true sacrifical love is.
The problem is that the giving tree shows indulgence and not love. The tree ought to teach the boy to share or something else that would enoble him. True love wants to perfect the beloved.
Instead, if it was the “giving wife”, with an abusive drunkard husband, she would be buying the booze and insuring he could keep hitting her. That would horrify most liberals. (Sounds like a good start for what would be a satire if it weren’t a mere transposition).
I disagree with your analysis. I found the ending of The Giving Tree sad, that the man had carelessly exploited the tree and left nothing but a dead stump, much as himself; whereas, had he realized the long-term value of the tree not just for himself but for his children, he would have more carefully exploited the tree and have left it alive to benefit many generations.
Not an uneconomic moral.
It would be a good lesson for our current central bank and politicians to take to heart.
Mike – Is it careless exploitation when the trade is voluntary? You may have a point if Silverstein had described the tree as mentally deficient in some way, but he doesn’t. In fact, he casts aspersions on the mental health of the man.
The whole idea of exploitation sounds so … so Marxist, in which individual workers are not free because they cannot leave the working class, allowing capitalists to take their surplus. This is another message of Silverstein’s little fable that I didn’t write about in the essay. The tree is rooted in one place, like the worker in stuck in his position, while the man has the ability to live life in different ways, limited only in his ability to take from the tree.
Mike,
That’s all fine, but what’s to say that the tree would not die or be stolen by the tax state when the man passes away? It is truly the man’s choice, even his obligation, to use whatever resources available to him to make his life as happy/productive as possible, and perhaps this end includes “long-term value” which transcends generations.
But, the point is, it is HIS prerogative. HE, the individual, is the ultimate arbiter of value. Thus, let us look at this economic example, which relates to your “long-term value for his kids” example:
The man has this tree-friend. The tree will willingly give the man apples, or allow him to take entire branches. The man has a choice. He can only take a few apples at a time to feed his family, and allow the tree to survive for a long time, which will in time feed his children and their children. However, what if he chooses to cut down the tree, sell the lumber AND the apples, invest the profits, makes millions, and suddenly, the “long-term value” of the tree goes from mere apples to real long-term wealth.
Now, who could argue that he did the wrong thing? It’s his choice, as long as Mr. Tree is willing to allow it.
This may be a little too literal an example, but, the point is, it is ultimately the individual who must make assign value in his/her life.
it’s articles like these that make people think we’re a bunch of quacks.
Mike,
That’s all fine, but what’s to say that the tree would not die or be stolen by the tax state when the man passes away? It is truly the man’s choice, even his obligation, to use whatever resources available to him to make his life as happy/productive as possible, and perhaps this end includes “long-term value” which transcends generations.
But, the point is, it is HIS prerogative. HE, the individual, is the ultimate arbiter of value. Thus, let us look at this economic example, which relates to your “long-term value for his kids” example:
The man has this tree-friend. The tree will willingly give the man apples, or allow him to take entire branches. The man has a choice. He can only take a few apples at a time to feed his family, and allow the tree to survive for a long time, which will in time feed his children and their children. However, what if he chooses to cut down the tree, sell the lumber AND the apples, invest the profits, makes millions, and suddenly, the “long-term value” of the tree goes from mere apples to real long-term wealth.
Now, who could argue that he did the wrong thing? It’s his choice, as long as Mr. Tree is willing to allow it.
This may be a little too literal an example, but, the point is, it is ultimately the individual who must make assign value in his/her life.
Mike,
That’s all fine, but what’s to say that the tree would not die or be stolen by the tax state when the man passes away? It is truly the man’s choice, even his obligation, to use whatever resources available to him to make his life as happy/productive as possible, and perhaps this end includes “long-term value” which transcends generations.
But, the point is, it is HIS prerogative. HE, the individual, is the ultimate arbiter of value. Thus, let us look at this economic example, which relates to your “long-term value for his kids” example:
The man has this tree-friend. The tree will willingly give the man apples, or allow him to take entire branches. The man has a choice. He can only take a few apples at a time to feed his family, and allow the tree to survive for a long time, which will in time feed his children and their children. However, what if he chooses to cut down the tree, sell the lumber AND the apples, invest the profits, makes millions, and suddenly, the “long-term value” of the tree goes from mere apples to real long-term wealth.
Now, who could argue that he did the wrong thing? It’s his choice, as long as Mr. Tree is willing to allow it.
This may be a little too literal an example, but, the point is, it is ultimately the individual who must make assign value in his/her life.
Mike,
That’s all fine, but what’s to say that the tree would not die or be stolen by the tax state when the man passes away? It is truly the man’s choice, even his obligation, to use whatever resou
Evan – you’re way too repetitive.
Chris – I mean “exploitation” in its literal sense, not in a Marxist sense (perhaps a poor choice of word).
The tree has no choice because it is a tree. The man is free to do as he wishes and we would not want to deny him the privilege. But not to criticize poor choices? That is libertinism. Let’s grant the individual has to make the choice, but the whole point of education and learning is to teach to choose wisely.
And zach, we are all nuts.
Mike – “The tree has no choice because it is a tree”. The storyline apparently has the tree giving fruit, branches, and wood. Giving is a choice. A vending machine has no “choice” – if I put in the money and press the buttons, I get the candy.
The man made poor choices and exploited the tree (which is why in my earlier post I alluded to codependency, and “the giving wife”).
I cannot derive a point of conservation or stewardship from the storyline. Masochism/Sadism, maybe. Codependency, maybe. Really stupid friendship or love? maybe. Economics or environmentalism? no.
Note to evan – don’t refresh this without going back to the main blog – it will do a repost of your message.
Lest I duck the issue zach brought up, maybe the Giving tree has a type error – maybe it was a filbert, cashew, pecan, or other similar tree and started out as a nut and never grew up, at least not intellectually or emotionally.
I’m glad somebody besides myself is repulsed by the poor parenting example in “The Giving Tree.” My sister gave me the book and raved about it’s example of unconditional love. I was bothered by the message, and she just smiled and said, keep reading, you’ll get it. Instead, what *I* saw was a parent who was willingly and completely exploited by the son, a son who was not helped along the path of becoming independent in life. Indeed, by the end of the son’s life, the son didn’t give anything to anybody — he only took. As I recall, he isn’t even thankful for what he takes. It touched a nerve with me because my own parents have this same codependent relationship with one of my brothers, and it has cost them all dearly.
It’s great and appropriate to help them children along as shown in the start of the book, but at some point the tree/parent does a disservice to the son by never having him stand on his own two feet. If this were a viable parenting method, then we all should embrace it, and the result will be kids who simply used up their parents and then died. The children would live longer than the parents, and so for some period of the parent’s life, they would be impoverished and unable to support themselves any longer. If grandkids come along, how will the selfish child/parent raise them? Wrong lesson in life.
The apple tree is like people of low self-esteem, who are easily used and taken advantage of by other people. This is like the relationship between Don Juan and his conquests, which in this case happens to be the apple tree. In the real world, nature provided sunshine, water, nutrients in the soil and favourable temperatures to enable plants and trees to grow in certain geographic regions (eg; check out the Kudzu weed in some parts of the USA).
To teach a child about the value of a relationship, let it see the plants being cared for and nurtured in the university dorms. Lots of older teenagers give tender and nurtuting care to potted plants right in the university dorms . . . . then they periodically enjoy the euphoria that a few leaves of the plant has to offer . . . and the plant is invariably a marijuana plant. THIS is an example of mutually reciprocal and beneficial relationship!!
Harry
I am printing out these comments and pasting them in my copy of The Giving Tree for my childrens’ future reference.
It is a reflection of our times that The Giving Tree, and not the many alternatives, has become one of the acceptable moral tales of a secular society.
“Secular society”- Are you saying that we need to be religious to be moral?
In my opinion, the Giving Tree is definitely worthy of being one of the top pieces of literature because of its understated elegance: The Giving Tree is never verbose, preachy, or inconsistent. It is the only story that I have ever read that moved me to tears.
If one accepts only that the nature of the tree is to give (i.e., to satisfy the immediate needs of his “friend” without thinking of the long-term consequences and with the unrealistic hope that the relationship will return to one of mutual psychic benefit (i.e., the time when the boy played with the branches of the tree)), and that the nature of the “boy” is to exploit the relationship for immediate material gain, then the story writes itself, as all good stories do.
Some are reading into the story the moral that one should behave like the tree; however, the book does not end with “…and the tree was good.”; instead, it ends with “… and the tree was happy.” There is no moral judgement there. It is merely a revelation about the depth of the tree’s love/codependency.
Would the “boy” have been happier had he managed his relationship with the tree, rather than shamelessly exploiting the tree? Probably, but the book wisely never makes this or any other claim. Would the tree have been happier had the boy loved the tree in return? Perhaps, but the nature of some is to enjoy giving to others even when the others will not or cannot reciprocate.
All of us who have seen the story as being one representing the parent/child or husband/wife relationship have read that into the book because of the reality of those analogies.
Now if the story contrasted the short-term explotation of the boy’s apple tree with that of a boy that manages the tree, plants an orchard, and maximizes the production of apples from that orchard, then the story would also have been one of the great classics of economics.
The Giving Tree Book by rtr
There was once a paper book about a great apple tree and a little boy. The book and the boy who read her would spend hours and hours together. The boy would play in the book’s pages oblivious to how they were produced, sleep at her spine that kept the spindler employed and eat of her words. And the book loved the boy.
One day, the boy came to the book. The book was delighted and beckoned, “Come and read!” But the boy was no longer a boy; he was now reading Kant and Marx, and he was interested in making a living, but he didn’t know how.
“Here,” the book said, “take my words and tell my story for apples on the street.” The young man did just that, and the book was happy.
Years passed, and the book was lonely without the young man. One day, he returned, and the book was delighted, but he was now interested in settling down. He wanted to build a house.
“Here,” the book said, “Copyright my pages and build your house of royalties.” The young man did just that, and the book was happy.
Years passed, and the book still missed her friend. One day, the man returned, and the book was again overjoyed at the vast fortune his estate had accumulated. But the man was now older and tired of life, having killed so many trees to print so many books; he wanted to get away from it all.
“Here,” the book offered, “Cut me and my tree friends out. Make for yourself an internet, and sail my words in it.” The man did just that, and the book was happy.
Many years passed, seasons came and went, and the book was very lonely. She missed her friend, and she often thought about the old days, when they had such fun. Finally, she saw her friend coming over the hill, and she was delighted.
But the boy was now an old man, no longer able to play or make money from the internet pirates who laughingly asailed his previous right of way. And he was tired.
“Here, my friend,” the book said, “I still have a tree friend with apples and branches and roots. Won’t you sit and rest against its sturdy trunk and admire its renewable leaves? It makes such a pleasant place from which to read me or some wireless Ludwig von Mises” The old man did that, and the book was happy.
I grew up loving the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.” When I became an Objectivist in college, I wrote an essay that condemned it as evil, in that George Bailey had spent his entire life helping others, often without compensation or even appreciation. At the beginning of the movie, one of his friends is heard praying, “He never thinks of himself, God, that’s why he’s in trouble,” which was basically the point of my essay.
I guess that’s kind of where you are with The Giving Tree, Mike. But I discovered that book when I was a little older and a little more beaten up by life — job loss in the ’91 recession, catastrophic car accident, divorce. I turned to my parents to help me out, which they did, without hesitation. And though I thanked them, I know I never appreciated them as much in life as I should have.
They are both dead now, and not a day goes by that I don’t give a quiet prayer of thanks for the many gifts and blessings they bestowed on me — many of which I wasn’t even aware of at the time.
I have tried to be that kind of loving, giving parent to my own daughter, who is 24 and off on her own. Even though she’s independent, she occasionally needs help of some kind — financial, emotional, spiritual. And before I help her, I don’t run a credit check to see whether she can pay me back.
The book is most accurately about parental love more than any other kind of relationship. Think of your own daughter, Mike — will you stop “giving” to her once she’s grown up unless she fairly compensates you as part of a trade or financial transaction? (You might want to wait until she actually is grown up to answer that. I know the answer I would have given as a young know-it-all Objectivist dad, and it’s not the same answer I would give now.)
(And here’s another question for you: why were you reading this to your daughter if you think so little of it? Is it perhaps because somewhere inside of you, you sense its truth where your love for her is concerned?)
It’s a beautiful story, Mike. Really, it is. Perhaps only those of us old enough to be both an adult child of loving parents, and a loving parent of adult children, can really appreciate its truth.
Steven M,
Excellent point. Contrasting the boy who takes with the boy who plants would make for an excellent introduction to thrift. The tree would actually get something out of it, namely having its genes passed along to many descendants, and they in turn would provide much to the descendants of the young man. Now if you can avoid using the term, “fruits of his labor” you might have a new classic on your hands.
For crying out loud, what is this nonesense? This article sounds like something out of an Ayn Rand manifesto. If a person or thing chooses to share its assets with another, and does so without compulsion, what in the world is so horrible about that? By the specious reasoning in this article, Jesus Christ was a fool and Christianity is a fraud. I’m almost ready to believe that Westley’s article was pure satire, though I cannot detect the slightest hint of irony or humor in his argument
Mike – This is no Randian manifesto, and for the life of me I do not see how so many people view this story as Christian allegory. One person, who said he understood the economic context of this essay, asked me if I thought that the tree could be considered a metaphor for God (in a spiritual context). I wrote back:
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Probably not, because God would not feed your selfishness your whole life and leave you impoverished at the end. This is not a mindset that characterizes the saints, for instance. Besides, God wants more for us than to own a house, a boat, etc. Seen in this context, the tree is probably a metaphor for the Devil (in a spiritual context, of course).
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Voluntary trade is great, but wise people choose not to engage in it if it results in dependency and impoverishment of those for whom we care. Unfortunately, that is not the message of _The Giving Tree_. There are many credible interpretations of this book–this explains its unfortunate appeal–but I fail to see how mine could be considered nonsense.
It’s long been an agitation to me that giving is considered to be beyond regard of the consequences whilst children are drilled into minding the consequences of their actions. It demonstrates how quickly people forget their lessons and how selectively they apply them.
Chris, I understand your modus operandi. I’ve taken a respite from writing because I see socialist ghouls crawling out of every cranny. I can’t be anywhere near a discussion without inducing a detonation of tempers. What people need to understand is that it’s just prudent to be thorough. I think that the article is entirely in line.
I caught an old Disney program on the TV a week ago. Scrooge McDuck was singing to his nephews about the flow of money. I figured out pretty quickly that it was politically loaded. He was saying that money was no good in the vault; that you have to keep it flowing- anti-saving blather. This was supposed to be Scrooge!
Life was alot more blissful before becoming an Austrian, when not every little thing drew the eye; when the imagination didn’t draw up every conceivable misinterpretation. To hell with bliss.
I’ve never heard of this book. From what I can gather of the message it makes statements, directly or indirectly, about the interaction between individuals and resources, or even individuals and other individuals. Those commenting have different interpretations of the meaning, and the depth of the meaning.
I wonder how many folks who read the book interpret the message as someone needs to mediate between the boy and the tree? – that would certainly be the root of a Statist interpretation. I fear that a good many readers would draw just that conclusion.
My take is simply that I am disinterested in the fate of the boy or the tree. Maybe that’s why allegory is lost on me (other than the annoyance I have at the heavy handedness of the author).
Judging from your article, the crude message of the book seems to be that setting the price of a scarce good to 0 is recipe for disaster. Not exactly bad economics.
I had no idea that so many people believed The Giving Tree was some kind of moral tale about why it’s good to be selflessly compassionate. No, no, no. The tree was meant to serve as a warning, not a role model. If you give all of yourself to someone who will never appreciate it, you’re left with nothing.
What child could look at the last, heartbreaking illustrations of that old stump and think that her choices had been worthwhile?
These lines summed the book for me: “And the tree was happy. But not really.”
What stands out to me is that the boy and the tree are both happiest when the tree is whole. It is when one takes from another without replenishing that dissatisfaction commences. The boy only lives in the moment as a child. As an adult, he is always thinking the “next thing” will make him happy. When in fact, what made him happiest, was what he always had. The tree also enables the boy’s skewed mentality and unhappiness by giving and never expecting anything back in return, hence diminishing the boy’s potential and the quality of life around him.
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