Mythopoesis in "The Giving Tree"

Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree was first published in 1964, and it is timeless. Is the tree selfless or self-sacrificing? Is the boy selfish or reasonable? This ambiguity has led to many interpretations of the children's book and has contributed to its longevity. I remember reading this book as a child. I didn't truly grasp the magnitude of the story. I understood it was inherently sad, but the multiple interpretations were over my head.

I believe the story has many different valid interpretations. I like the analysis regarding self-sacrifice and selfishness and general human motivations. I don't particularly like interpretations that use the story as an environmental fable mostly because those interpretations, even in formal settings, turn into heavy-handed "Captain Planet" speeches. While I don't think of my theory as the "end all" of Giving Tree interpretations, I do feel I have a valid point that the story is a mythopoetic retelling of Ovid's version of the Daphne and Apollo myth. Come with me, reader, as I explore an old children's book related to an even older myth.

I refer to The Giving Tree as a "retelling" because the two stories have similar themes of love and sacrifice. The two stories differ in that that Ovid's myth starts with parasitic love and evolves into mutual love, and Silverstein's story starts with mutual love and devolves into parasitic love. The two stories are the same—they simply unfold in reverse order.

I have divided the both stories into three categories based on plot. Beginning, Transformation, and Ending.

Section 1: Beginning Parasitic love between Daphne and Apollo. Symbiotic love between the boy and the tree.

At the start of the Ovid myth, the love between Daphne and Apollo is one-sided or parasitic. Apollo loves Daphne dearly, but she does not reciprocate his love.

...serving
to drive all love away, and this blunt arrow
[Cupid] used on Daphne, but he fired the other,
The sharp and golden shaft, piercing Apollo
Through bones, through marrow, and at once he loved
And she at once fled from the name of lover,
Rejoicing in the woodland hiding places. (17)

This original one-sided love in Ovid's version of the myth differs from Silverstein's initial mutual love between the Giving Tree and the young boy. At first, the boy and the tree have a symbiotic relationship. They both gain positive emotional energy from the relationship as seen in the pictures below.














Section 2: Transformation
Daphne Transforms into a Tree. The boy grows older.

As Daphne continues to reject Apollo, she eventually gives up her human form as a means of escape:

..."O help me,
If there is any power in the rivers,
Change and destroy the body which has given
Too much delight!" And hardly had she finished,
When her limbs grew numb and heavy, her soft breasts
Were closed with delicate bark, her hair was leaves,
Her arms were branches, and her speedy feet
Rooted and held, and her head became a tree top.
Everything gone except her grace, her shining.
Apollo loved her still. (19-20)

Even after the river god transforms Daphne into a tree, Apollo "loved her still." For Apollo, his love is beyond the sexual desires of the human form. Apollo loves Daphne despite her becoming a tree.

Contrasted to Daphne's magical transformation, the boy simply grows older. The boy begins dating other humans, and the Giving Tree is left more and more alone. As the boy grows older, his love becomes more conditional.














The stories aesthetically oppose each other not only in the thematic of love, but in the presentation of gender. Apollo, the male character, portrays the same kind of unwavering love as the Giving Tree, the female character. Apollo, like the Giving Tree, has a love that transcends the physical form. Similarly, Daphne's love is changed when she becomes a tree, much like the boy's love is changed by growing older.

Section 3: Ending Symbiotic love between Daphne and Apollo. Parasitic love between the boy and the tree.

As Apollo catches Daphne, he attempts to convince her of his love for her new form.

He placed his hand
Where he had hoped and felt the hear still beating
Under the bark; and he embraced the branches
As if they were still limbs, and kissed the wood.
The wood shrank from his kisses, and the god
Exclaimed, "Since you can never be my bride,
My tree at least you shall be! Let the laurel
Adorn, henceforth, my hair, my lyre, my quiver.
Let Roman victors, in the long procession,
Wear laurel wreaths for triumph and ovation.
Beside Agustus' portals let the laurel
Guard and watch over the oak, and as my head
Is always youthful, let the laurel always
Be green and shining!" He said no more.
The Laurel, Stirring, seemed to consent, to be saying yes. (20)

Here, we see that Apollo has convinced Daphne is his love. Daphne and Apollo move from a parasitic love to a mutual love—a love where Apollo and Daphne both willingly consent to the relationship. Apollo has proved that his love transcends the physical realm; he wishes to honor Daphne by having his countrymen wear laurels in their hair.

This mutual relationship between Daphne and Apollo at the end of the myth is a strong contrast to the parasitic relationship that develops between the boy and the Giving Tree. After the boy’s transformation into an adult, he takes the apples and branches and tree trunk as a way to selfishly prosper in a life away from the Giving Tree. Unlike Daphne, who could run away from the parasitic relationship with Apollo, the Giving Tree, rooted in her own unconditional love, sacrifices her own well-being for the boy.













One might argue that the Giving Tree and the boy reclaim their mutual love at the end of the book, when the boy sits on the Giving Tree. But this is not the same type of mutual love at the start of the poem. Here, the Giving Tree has given away all of her body to the boy. The Giving Tree might feel happy again, but this is not the same type of happiness as the mutual love at the start of the book. The Giving Tree nostalgically remembers the time when she was truly happy—the boy sitting on her is a false happiness echoing from the past. The boy show no real growth or regret for abusing the tree. He returns, and the Giving Tree simply gives herself away again. At the end of The Giving Tree, the love is birthed from desperation and loneliness.













Connection of Language to Illustrations:

It is also important to note that some of the illustrations by Silverstein directly relate to quotations from the Ovid myth.

Let Roman victors, in the long procession,
Wear laurel wreaths for triumph and ovation. (20)

he embraced the branches
As if they were still limbs(20)

He placed his hand
Where he had hoped and felt the hear still beating
Under the bark. (20)













In terms of the cycle, it is important to note that the quotations from the Ovid myth come from the post-transformation section (when Daphne and Apollo are in the mutual love stage) and the Silverstein illustrations come from the pre-transformation section (when the boy and Giving tree are in the mutual love stage). As displayed in the chart below, the mutual love occurs at the beginning for the Giving Tree and at the end for the Ovid myth.

Conclusion:

The Giving Tree is a mythopoetic retelling of the Daphne and Apollo myth. The two stories hinge on their respective transformation sections. Ovid's myth uses the transformation section to shift Daphne's rejection of Apollo into mutual love. Silverstein, on the other hand, uses the transformation to change the boy's love into selfish exploitation.

The relationship between the two couples is cyclical. I’ve made a diagram to show the two stories thematically cycle upon one another.

It is impossible to know to what extent Silverstein was familiar with the myth, but it seems highly probable that there was some connection between the Ovid myth and the creation of his classic children’s book.

I believe Silverstein inverted the thematic progression of love, as well as the genders, from the original myth because this thematic inversion aesthetically challenges the Ovid myth. Silverstein, in essence, immortalizes himself as a type of poet like Ovid. Like Shakespeare and his source materials, I believe The Giving Tree, Silverstein's most impressive work, builds upon, reexamines, and improves upon his source material.

Works Cited:
Ovid. Metamorphoses. Trans. Rolfe Humphries. Bloomington, IN: Indiana U.P., 1983.
Silverstein, Shel. The Giving Tree. New York: Harper and Row, 1964.