Like people often read The Giving Tree, I think unfairly, as being about an unhealthy relationship. This poem has a very similar theme of a parent figure destroying herself to give a child something.
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The two main differences are (1) that in Milay's version you get a peek into the giver's psyche, and (2) that the context is a boy in deep poverty rather than someone wanting stuff right this second.
While the lack of this clarity maybe makes Silverstein's poem more interesting, and possibly produces the complex reactions people have, a nice thing about Milay is that if you think I'm crazy for liking The Giving Tree, Milay will convey to you how I feel about it.
Also, good morning!
Incidentally, it's probably worth adding that, as I recall, Silverstein himself at some point says something like "It's just a poem about a boy and a tree!" That is, he may have just been being evocative in a way that makes interpretation silly. But, here we are with poems to think about, so we do.
@zachweinersmith.bsky.social @ZachWeinersmith What’s your interpretation of The Giving Tree if the tree is not the boy’s mother or representing motherhood?
For me, Milays’s poem is beautifully sad. The Giving Trree is just sad.
@jkaniarz @zachweinersmith.bsky.social For me, the tree and the boy's relationship is like any in which you care about someone with no expectation of recompense. Could be parenting, could be taking care of a person with severe mental handicaps, could be taking care of a very old person with dementia.
@ZachWeinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social I get it broadly, but the extreme sacrifices of the tree for the whims of the boy are mismatched. It’s not like the tree dropped a branch to save the boy from drowning in a river.
Sacrificing one’s life to save another is noble. Sacrificing yourself to help your friend get with a girl, not so much.
Every human relationship comparison I can think of is an unhealthy relationship. The tree needs therapy.
@ZachWeinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social Not trying to argue, though. I would legitimately like an example where this is okay.
@jkaniarz @zachweinersmith.bsky.social I know people, for example, who care for severely mentally handicapped kids who are not the sweet charming kind usually portrayed in books in movies. They may be violent or in constant emotional disregulation, and they may never recognize how much you helped them. But the help is the end in itself because we're all just people trying to carry each other. I don't think this is what Silverstein was necessarily talking about but I think it's real.
