Personification And Imagery In Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree

657 Words3 Pages

“I’m a big believer in persistence, don’t be greedy and, above all, work hard. It’s what keeps me going”. The boy was being greedy and kept asking the tree for stuff over and over again. He never worked hard to try to get the things he wanted on his own. In The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein uses Personification and Imagery to explain how the tree could communicate with the boy when he was being greedy.

Shel Silverstein used personification by giving human characteristics to an object. The tree was talking and trees don’t talk so that means the author gave the tree the ability to talk in the story by using personification.“I’m sorry, said the tree”, “I have no house, said the tree”, “Cut down my trunk and make a boat, said the tree” are examples of personification. When the tree was talking to the boy the author was giving human characteristics to an object. When the boy said “I want some money?” he was being greedy because he didn’t need it, and the tree was nice and let him take some of her apples and sell them and get some money. …show more content…

Imagery is when you can imagine something the author says. “He would climb up her trunk and swing from her branches and eat apples”, “But time went by. And the boy grew older”, “well, an old stump is good for sitting and resting” are examples of imagery. You can imagine all of those examples as you are reading and it helps you understand what the boy and the tree are