And The Tree Was Happy… But Not Really
Even though it seems to be a divisive book, I like The Giving Tree. There are a lot of reasons to not like it, and a lot of reasons to love it. I’m not here to change minds. I’m here to talk about my favorite line from the book, “And the tree was happy… but not really.” I think both the line's original placement and its later removal from the book is a testament to Shel Silverstein and his respect for the children reading his works. I also don’t believe that there is a “correct” read of this children's book, and I don’t think any of them are bad.
Shel Silverstein was definitely not exclusively a children's writer. He wrote extensively for Playboy magazine and has many more adult poems such as All The Time In The World. I think that his time writing for adults helped shape the type of author he ended up being for children. In his later writing, he doesn’t try to moralize to kids, or hold their hand though his writing. He trusted his audience, these children, to understand his words just as he used to trust the adults he wrote for to understand his dry humor in Playboy magazines.Â
This seems to make adults uncomfortable. The idea that children might read something that has a bad lesson for them, or something that they might not understand– something that’s “too broad” for them– is a scary idea for some adults. Although, I don’t agree that any of Shel Silverstein's actually had bad lessons in them. I don’t think a lot of those poems have any lessons in them (as I said, he doesn’t seem to moralize to children), and I’m sure the idea of children's media without a lesson is also unsettling for parents because it means that any lesson they learn from that poem isn’t a reflection of the poem, but a reflection of their parenting. I also don’t agree that there is any emotion or idea “too broad” for a child. Children are sponges, and can absorb so many complex ideas and thoughts as long as they are spoken to on their level. Shel Silverstein with his simple words, exceptional construction of his poems, and fun pictures really knows how to speak to children.
The worlds that Shel Silverstein creates are open ended and expansive. Some of my favorite poems from him highlight this quality like in Where The Sidewalk Ends, “Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow, and we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go, for the children, they mark, and the children, they know, the place where the sidewalk ends.” or in Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too, “... Never returned to the world they knew, And nobody knows what’s happened to…”. And of course, my favorite line from The Giving Tree, “And the tree was happy… but not really.” These lines are open ended, and Silverstein doesn’t have to give an explanation of what they mean for them to be impactful.Â
The entire poem Where The Sidewalk Ends may give some readers an eerie feeling or perhaps a hopeful one. The last lines of Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too may allude to some grand adventure, death, or getting lost somewhere. But Silverstein never confirms these assumptions of feeling in the poems themselves.
This is different in The Giving Tree. Silverstein explicitly tells the audience that the tree is happy, or sad. Except of course, when the boy cuts down her trunk to make a boat and sail away. When that happens, the tree is happy… but not really. This is a divisive decision made by Silverstein. It’s a very complex emotion, said in such simple words. We, as the audience, could imply that she, the tree, is depressed, disappointed, or angry, but, we don’t know for sure what she felt.Â
Some people are of the opinion that this line shows that the relationship between the boy and the tree is a toxic or abusive one. While I don’t believe that, I don’t think it’s an inherently incorrect interpretation. This line is meant to be broad and open ended, which is why it’s my favorite. It shows how much we really don’t know about the tree and how she might feel. It makes the audience re-think other times the tree had been happy to give parts of herself to the boy.
Although this is my favorite line, I don’t mind it being excluded later on from the book or in the 1973 The Giving Tree Movie. I think it fundamentally changes the book, but not in a good or a bad way. In the version without the line, we just have less insight into the tree, but the same conclusions could be drawn from the book, with or without the line.
This complexity of emotion put in such simple terms shows so much respect Silverstein had towards the children that he wrote for. He didn’t feel the need to hold their hand and delicately explain what the tree felt and why. Children can think, and they can think about very expansive ideas, but so much children's media underestimates them. I never feel as though children will be underestimated as they read Shel Silverstein. From The Giving Tree, to Where The Sidewalk Ends, and Runny Babbit, Silverstein creates worlds where children can draw their own conclusions.
