How Does Shel Silverstein Use Personification In The Giving Tree

Why do certain people do certain things under certain circumstances and other people do completely different things under the same circumstances? The past is what creates the base of someone, but the way a person acts daily sculpts him. The giving tree, by Shel Silverstein, clearly Shows character motivations and continual actions over time. The Giving Tree is a story about a boy who loves a tree, but as he grows older, he slowly becomes selfish and starts taking parts of the tree and damaging her for personal object gains. By employing characters motivations, psychoanalytical attitudes, and transformation over time, Shel Silverstein uses repetition and simplicity to express that when time passes true friends will acts selflessly towards you

The tree ends up sacrificing herself for the boy. For example, on page 36 the tree asks the boy to go and play with her, but the boy doesn't want to. The boy says he wants a house. So to satisfies the boys need the tree tells the boy to use her wood. The boy proceeds to cut off the tree’s branches. When giving words to a tree, a being that can’t actually talk, the author is using personification and giving the tree human capabilities. Thanks to the use of personification on the tree we can figure out the tree’s motivations which is to do what it takes to satisfy the boy. Another clear example is on page 42. The tree says “Cut down my trunk” (Silverstein) and the boy proceeds to do this. We can see again from this that the trees motivation is just to please the boy. Another example is on page 49, where the tree tells the boy “an old stump is good for sitting and resting” (Silverstein). The tree has nothing else to offer the boy but sitting on the tree. The boy then proceeds to sit on the tree. We can clearly view the continuity of the trees motivation to satisfy the

For example, from page 14 to 24, the author starts each page with the word “And”. Quoting from page 14 to 24 “and swing from her branches and eat apples. And they would play hide-and-go-seek. And when he was tired, he would sleep in her shade. And the boy loved the tree...very much. And the tree was happy” (Silverstein). The author mentions all these activities that the child and the tree experienced together to show the child's young years. It shows a large period of time. It demonstrates that most of the boy’s time was passed playing with the tree. Another clear example of repetition is viewed through Silverstein’s use of imagery. The author repeats drawing the tree in a similar way. On page 2, for example, Silverstein draws the tree in a simple matter. This image is repeated on almost every single page of the book with slight variations. Silverstein is trying to show that the tree is the main character in the story. Another example of repetition explaining pass of time is viewed on pages 24, 34, 40, 45, and 51. The author repeats the same phrase “And the tree was happy…” (Silverstein). He places these phrases in their own separate lines to emphasize the lines importance. These repetitions of those phrases express time passing and a continual steady emotion of the tree’s happiness when the boy was