AP Literature and Composition

November 8, 2013

Mr. Houghteling

“It’s a Four Interpretation Friday, and because it’s

Friday, you know what that means…!”

“It’s great to be alive!”

Agenda• Storytime revisited: change your

perspective. • Analysis of The Giving Tree using the

different Literary Criticism perspectives• Review the interpretations I’ve provided

at the end of this presentation. • Homework

Literary Criticism Circles• Meet in groups of four. • Review the criticism your group has been

given. Solidify your understanding of the criticism.

• Reread The Giving Tree, analyzing the text through the perspective of your criticism.

• Write down at least five observations or conclusions that your group has made relative to your literary criticism perspective.

• On a separate sheet of paper, record your group’s observations.

Storytime Redux

• The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

Homework

1. Write a short personal reflection about how the criticism affected your interpretation of the story.

2. Which school of criticism did you find most applicable to The Giving Tree?

3. Which school of criticism interests you the most?

The Giving Tree – Gender Criticism

•The female tree can be interpreted as Mother Earth, or simply a mother, sustaining the dominant male first with enjoyment and food and later with the means to provide shelter and transportation.

The Giving Tree – Marxist CriticismWhen the boy is young, he

is content simply to play with the tree: climbing up her trunk, gathering her apples, and sleeping in her shade. However, as he grows older, he becomes increasingly demanding of the tree’s resources. He is no longer content to enjoy the tree’s company, but rather he seeks the tree for financial and materialistic gain.

The Giving Tree – Eco-Criticism• Man is dependent on nature for survival: the man systematically destroys the tree in order to get what he wants in order to be happy.

The Giving Tree – Archetypal Criticism

•The tree—with her branches, her trunk, and her apples—is the giver of life, reiterating the archetype of nature as provider for man.