The Giving Tree Shel Silverstein Analysis

The novel Speak by Laurie Hales Anderson shows Melinda Sordino struggling through the year, and her recovery from the painful memory of getting raped at the party in summer break. In the beginning of the story, the story shows how bad Melinda feels and then she changes and starts growing and at the final stage of the story Melinda becomes a strong hard oaktree-like person. In the book Speak, the author symbolizes the tree to show Melinda’s change from being an outcast to being an accepted person; this also supports the theme: time can help heal one’s painful memories.In the beginning of the year, her trees looked like trees that existed nowhere on earth, but by the end of the year, her trees were breathing and looked as if they had shot up

He tells her, “Make it bend- trees are flexible, so they don’t snap. Scar it, give it a twisted branch- perfect trees don’t exist. Nothing is perfect. Flaws are interesting. Be the tree” (601).

Melinda’s father is supportive of his daughter’s passion for saving the tree and actually hire an arborist to come save the tree. When the arborist is working a young child passes by and asks her dad why they are cutting down the tree. His answer was. “He’s not chopping it down. He is saving it. Those branches were long dead from disease. All plants are like that. By cutting off the damage, you make it possible for the tree to grow again. You watch- by the end of the summer, this tree will be the strongest on the block.” (Anderson 187). This is important to be like Melinda’s soul is like a tree because she is made of many branches just like the oak tree, however, her secret is eating away at her like tree’s disease is eating at it. If Melinda could cut off those dead branches, no matter how hard and painful it would be to tell people that she was raped, it would help her to start growing again and become the strongest person

The essay I chose to read was “Planting a Tree” by Edward Abbey. To me, the most interesting part of this essay is the shift from describing the terrain, to describing the missile bases located in the area. The way the author describes the military is simply fascinating ,”The life expectancy of the average Tucsonan, therefore, is thirty minutes-or whatever it takes for an ICBM to shuttle from there to here.” Also, whenever the author describes the great contemporary empires ,”Like mortally wounded tyrannosaurs, they thrash out in frenzy, seeking enemies, destroying thousands of innocent lives with each blind spasm of reaction.” The author’s use of active verbs and language makes this story develop in such a way that the story will never fall

Janie sees that her dreams were more idealistic compared to what her life tured out to be. The tree contains both suffering and joy.

Nature’s beauty and bountifulness has been exploited by humans since the beginning of time. The simple story of Shel Silvertein’s, “The Giving Tree”, seems like a leisurely tale of a relationship between a boy and a tree. However, this book can be analyzed in several different ways, resulting in multiple interpretations. My own view of the story is quite cynical. I believe this story is an allegory of the destructive relationship between mankind and nature.

As the story progresses the woman’s cravings reach a point at which she desired some bark from the Great Tree. However as stated before in the passage, “the tree was not supposed to be marked or mutilated by any of the beings who dwelt in the Sky World”. “The women decided that she wanted some bark” proving that she made a conscious choice to violate the rules. This is a representation of how the Iroquois view women. How dare she, as a woman, decide to do anything without the authorization of a man. When she asked her husband to retrieve the bark he denied her request,

When the boy was tired he would sleep in the tree's shade. On page 11 and 30 it shows when the tree shows care to the boy. On page 11 it says, "And when he was tired, he would sleep in her shade." And on page 30 it says, "“well, an old stump is good for sitting and resting. Come, Boy, sit down. sit down and rest.” This shows that the tree is very caring every time the boy would ask for something she would gladly give it to him. And when the boy came for the last time she was still glad to help out when the boy was tired. Mothers gladly give what the child wants. They care about them. For example when her child is tired, they could rest on their lap or the mother would take them to their

“’The next time you work on your trees, don’t think about trees. Think about love, or hate, or joy, or pain – whatever makes you feel something, makes your palms sweat, or your toes curl. Focus on that feeling.’”(122) In the book speak there are many examples of symbolism. The one that stands out the most is the tree as it is mentioned very frequently in almost every chapter of the book. It represents that growth that she goes through as a character from the beginning of the book to the end and her mental recovery after the traumatic event of being raped. The different representations we see of the tree correspond with the state she is in and the emotions she is feeling at that part in the book. When she is struggling with her life she

The Giving Tree becomes so absorbed in her concerns for the Boy that she neglects to truly take care of herself. While Silverstein states in the poem that the Giving Tree loved the Boy, all of her subsequent actions benefited the Boy and harmed herself. She was only content when caring for the Boy; she never seemed to be complete by herself. Thus, when the little Boy wanted money, she gave her fruits to him to sell. She gifted her branches to him, so that he could build the house he wanted. Then she gifted her trunk, so that the Boy could sail away in his own boat. By the time the Boy had aged into seniority, he had already reduced the Tree to a stump. In relation to self care, it’s also vitally important to remove toxicity in your life. Somebody who drains you of energy is toxic. The Boy came back time and time again to ask for more, and then would leave her behind

One of the greatest genres of music Rock and Roll evolved in the United States in the late 1940’s early 1950’s. This genre was known to be a mixture of gospel, blues, jazz, western swing, and country music. There are countless altered types of rock songs which means they can use different instruments but a few common instruments are drums, bass guitar, piano, and vocals which makes it a unique genre because although it is the same genre, each rock songs uses its own instruments and it’ll still make rock and roll music. Rock and Roll was a time of change in the dance field and inspired many people in the fashion industry and to mix different types of music to achieve a certain beat and with that, new trends will start occurring in society and

When Melinda draws the word tree she says “Tree? It’s too easy” (Anderson, p.12). Melinda thought that making an art project of a tree that had emotion would be easy. She came to find out that it was harder than she had expected. After a week of trying to create her tree out of watercolors, Melinda creates trees that have been hit by lightning. She tries to “paint them so they are nearly dead, but not totally” (Anderson, pp.30-31). This statement reflects how Melinda feels towards life. After she was raped, she felt as if she was dead. She had no one to confide in and all her friends, and even people who were not her friends, were angry with her for calling the cops. She did not have the courage to tell them the reason she called the cops, because she feared they would no longer think of her the same way. Because of this, Melinda lived a lonely life with no one to talk to. She was not completely dead, but was not living her life to the fullest either. The trees she painted with watercolor are a representation of how she sees her

The speaker conveys family value is more important than any monetary value. The tree represents the growth of the family and how it is now intertwined with the house through the, "roots in the cellar drains" (Oliver 11). Nothing can replace the sentimental value the tree represents. There is a shift in the theme from the beginning. The speaker wanted to sell the tree for the money, demonstrating theme that sometimes things must be sacrificed in order to provide for practical needs.

The tree symbolizes Melinda directly . During the time that her tree looks un-lifelike, or is portrayed as dead, Melinda is going through the roughest time of her depression. After Melinda mentally overcomes the rape and talks about it, her trees exhibit changes in appearance: “I look at my homely sketch. It doesn't need anything… it isn’t perfect and that makes it just right.” (198).

"Blessed is the mother who is able to help her child, at whatever age. This truth about parental happiness is surly known by any loving parents who has been compelled to watch impotently while his child is suffering." The example to prove this statement can be seen all through the story. "The forest is my house, but you may cut of my branches and build a house. Then you will be happy. And so the boy cut of her branches and carried them away to build his house. And the tree was happy." On the other hand, the boy still stays inconsiderate and selfish. He never even once mention to the tree how thankful he is or even a simply "thank you". "The love of the tree for the boy or the man is a selfless love, while the love of the boy for the tree is a selfish love. The boy never tries to help the tree (by pruning, feeding it, et cetera), while the entire being of the tree is devoted to helping the boy meet his most recent need, whether trivial or essential."