The Giving Tree Thesis

First, the author uses symbolism. For instance, The tree in the story represents Lane’s fallen faith and the hole where the tree once stood represents the emptiness where Lane's faith once was and lastly, the roots of the tree represent the tangled mess his life and relationship is. “Lane was very still and immobile and looking past the bank at the downed tree in the shallows and its ball of exposed roots

So she and her father started pruning the tree which is the process of cutting off all the old rotted branches that the tree does not need. ”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” The process of her and her father's pruning shows how she is trying to cut off all the bad and rotten things about her. She is trying to better herself and be confident in herself. Trees are symbolic and many different ways, this book is one of them.

“Mom frowned at me… that gives it its beauty.” (p. 38) When Jeannette devises a plan to uproot the Joshua tree, which has grown sideways in the direction of the constant wind that passes over it, her mother quickly dismisses the idea. Rose Mary claims that the tree is beautiful not because it grows straight like the other trees, but rather because its struggle defines it and makes it unique. Rose Mary is typically unwilling to tamper with nature and she is particularly drawn to the unique form of the Joshua Tree. Through the figure of the tree a young Jeannette learns an important lesson about non-conformity.

With the honest tone that can be considered trustworthy because of how blunt it is and the emotional diction that gives a better understanding of how the characters feel, the reader can see that the boy appreciates the tree while the girl does not pay particular attention to it. Following the tree the siblings pay attention to, it also serves as a romantic symbol in the excerpt and is a specific selection of

Speak Essay “ A sure cure for seasickness is to sit under a tree” (Spike milligan). Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson is about a girl named Melinda that got raped at a party, ever since then she lost all her friends and struggled talking to people in high school. The tree in the book Speak is a motif in the story that symbolizes the growth of Melinda. First, she is assigned to draw a tree and thought it was too easy, Then, she tried stepping it up by adding color to the tree, finally, she built confidence in herself and agreed that she can do a better on drawing a tree.

In the novel Speak the main character melinda IS dealing with no friends except one through her freshman year because she is hated. She uses a tree as an art project to show her emotions and draws the picture like that. She also is very quite and doesn’t talk burly at all. So the symbol that is the best expressed is the tree. I say this because in the book it says “She isn’t excited to be drawing trees all year long and doesn’t like the idea of it either.” You can clearly see that in the beginning she doesn’t want to spend all year doing a tree. What you can’t tell is that later on in the novel she uses the tree to express her own feelings in her drawing. IN conclusion the tree is the best way to tell how she is feeling that day.

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,

The circle of abuse and abandonment stands out as one of the prominent themes throughout Boy, Snow, Bird. In fact, many of the relationships throughout this book address this issue both directly or indirectly. Many of the mother daughter relationships throughout this book remain blatant examples; Boy sending Snow away, Frank allowing Boy to think all her life that her mother left her, Frank’s girlfriend leaving Boy alone with the Rat Catcher, even Boy running away, all of these have elements of abandonment and abuse. But Charlie and Boy’s

Additionally, trying to reclaim her sense of self as she often put on an act that she’s ok during communications with others and sometimes she does not know who she really is. Also, her attachment to the tree indicates how she is avoiding her own problems which does not mean she has come to terms with her past. In the novel as demonstrated, she refuses to acknowledge what had happened to herself by keeping silent, hoping she wouldn’t remember it by can be seen how she denies reality like how she nicknames many of her teachers instead of using their real name. Like nature she can control whatever she wants to do unpredictably as long it helps her forget, but she is unable to control her own life of being criticized by others and silence controls her. Like how she use nicknames for others, others would use her name as a source of control that results to bullying.

Like Francie, the tree remains constant, yet still changes every so slightly with Francie as she navigates childhood to young adulthood to adulthood. The tree proves to be as stubborn as Francie is, fighting through every season and gaining more strength on its journey. In harsh contrast, Johnny Nolan is an incredibly soft character, who Smith depicts almost in a weak way. Johnny does not have his limits when it comes to two of the great loves of his life: alcohol and daydreaming. Yes, it is Johnny who instills the naivety of daydreaming into Francie, helping her to be the innocent child the audience meets at the beginning of the story, but ultimately, his addictions lead to his demise. Thorough a vast array of characters, Smith creates a tale with a variety of morals, fears, and everything in

The author gives many examples that show the initiation and the road of trials of Sylvia climbing the tree. One example is, ?a bird fluttered off its nest, and a red squirrel ran to and fro and scolded pettishly at the harmless housebreaker.? The author uses the word housebreaker as Sylvia saying that she is invading the animals that live on the tree and the animal think that she is an enemy. The author also uses simile to make the tree alive. The author wrote, ?The sharp dry twigs caught and held her and scratched her like angry talons.? The author compares the tree to a talon. The author?s language greatly compares Sylvia and the tree that make this story a dramatic adventure. The passage says that Sylvia has thin little fingers clumsy and stiff compares to the tree?s great stem. Sylvia did not give up and she climbs until it was morning, the tree was amazed at the determined spark of human

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

“He’s not chopping it down. He’s saving it. Those branches were long dead from a 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 summer, this tree will be the strongest on the block” (187). Melinda’s disease to an unhealthy tree was the silence of the rape. Melinda holding in the dreadful memory without telling anyone, kept her from becoming the tree she wanted to draw. Like removing the sick branches off to keep the tree healthy, Melinda had to speak up about the trauma. Once Melinda stood up for herself, the tree, which is actually her, can grow to its full

Let’s move on to the incident of the story, the boy was very childish after the incident happened and his act and thought was really a kid. As the story says, “He felt the shadow and weight of his father behind him, placid and unashamed. Oh how he hated him and his smug, foreign stupidity! Why did he have to be his father (p.220)?” We can know the boy was really childish after the incident happened. Although his father’s behavior was rude or not good, he is so emotional and doesn’t give his father respect. His father grab the orange form a young man who seemed wants to give help. The boy couldn’t judge his father like that way because he doesn’t know these oranges are for their family and

The boy on the other hand is like us, the children who are used to receiving and receiving, so much that we take it for granted, so sometimes, we tend to forget to think about the tree or our parents.