Wednesday, January 03, 2007

• The Giving Tree....love it or hate it?

  On my mom's board we are having a discussion about Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree.  One writer was remarking how it is a terrible tale for children about co-dependant relationships.  She asserted the tree's giving was pathological and done out of a need to be needed and loved rather than out of love itself.  She referred everyone to a virtual symposium on the book to illustrate that she was not the only one with issues with the book.

  I'm not really going to debate her points because they are a typical post-feminist reaction to the book which is already well documented and, imo, tired.  What surprises me is that they are HER arguments.

  The writer is a fairly devout cradle Catholic.  She is presumably catechized in the Catholic culture of self sacrifice as a virtue and should be able to see the obvious biblical allegories in the story.  That popular culture has so thoroughly ingrained itself over those core Catholic values is disturbing.

  I have no idea what Silverstein's religious beliefs were but it seems to me that Catholics should be able to understand the love story that is The Giving Tree more easily than most.  If not how can we begin to understand the love story of St. Francis of Assisi or the love story of St. Joan of Arc?  Are we not raised with the self sacrificing stories of the saints and martyrs?  To reject that the tree could have given out of an ephemeral and pure love is to really reject the possibility of saints and martyrs entirely.  And is the tree not the story of the prodigal son and thus the story of God's own love for us so clearly!?!  To reject the tree is to simultaneously reject the notions of unconditional love and forgiveness, without which there can be no God who sends his only Son to redeem mankind.

  And back to the original point about co-dependency, is it not the same type of "co-dependency" we share with God?  He is pleased when we love Him (like the tree) and sad when we don't but He is never, ever dependent on us.  Indeed, the tree gives the boy what he needs at each stage to achieve independence but never foresakes the boy in his hours of need.  Is this not what we have specifically been promised by God, ever faithful? 

  The book may be many things, on many levels, but to reject it out of hand because the type of love the tree gives is not possible without being pathological is a sad commentary on the selfishness of our culture.

  • 6:09 PM
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