In The Giving Tree, the main character is, well, a tree. But Shel Silverstein decides to refer to the tree with feminine pronouns: she, her, hers. And that, dear Shmoopers, stirs up all kinds of issues around gender. Is the tree a woman? Does she represent a mother? Is she in an abusive relationship? Does she feel like she has to sacrifice herself for the sake of the boy? And if so, is that because she's his mom or just because she's female?
By making the one seemingly simple choice of giving the tree feminine pronouns, Silverstein adds tremendously to the complexity of his story, which makes us wonder: how would it have been read if he hadn't made that choice?
Questions About Women and Femininity
- How would The Giving Tree be different if the characters' genders were reversed, if the tree was male and the boy was a girl?
- Consider each of the boy's requests of the tree (for money, for a house, for a boat) as though they had been made by a girl instead. Does the gender of the character making the request change the nature of the request at all? Why or why not?
- If the tree had been referred to as "it" throughout the book and then you were asked at the end to assign a binary gender to the tree, would you be more inclined to make the tree male or female? Why?
Chew on This
The Giving Tree would be no different if the tree were referred to with masculine pronouns.
The Giving Tree wouldn't work as a story if the tree were referred to with masculine pronouns.