Freud as a Tool of Literary Criticism: Unbalanced Personality Structures in Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree

Abi Zaky Mashuri, Krisna Sujiwa

Abstract


While Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree is widely read as a parable of unconditional love, this interpretation overlooks the deeply imbalanced dynamics between the Boy and the Tree. Previous research has discussed more about stories from an ethical perspective or ecofeminism, which has resulted in there is still an imbalance in analysis related to the representation of psychological dependence with unhealthy relationship patterns in children's literature. To be able to fill this gap, this study uses an approach from interpretive psychoanalysis using Freud's concept which is a tool for literary criticism. With qualitative descriptive methods and in-depth textual analysis, the relationship between the Boy and the Tree was analyzed based on Freud's probability, mechanisms in self-defense, and instinctive impulses. The results of the analysis indicated that there was a personality imbalance in the two characters where the Boy was analyzed which was more dominated by Id and experienced oral-aggressive fixation. His actions are directed from the principle of pleasure without considering the moral impact on the other party, but the Tree has a weak Ego and an unhealthy Superego. Sacrifice with the gradual destruction of oneself is justified as a form of affection with a rationalization mechanism. These relationships form a pattern of mutual dependence with repetition. The Tree's behavior that always fulfills the Boy's desires increases his inability to develop emotionally and responsibly so that this cycle can be interpreted as the dominance of the death instinct or Thanatos which is indicated by the exhaustion and destruction of both characters. Therefore, The Giving Tree is not only analyzed as a moral story about selfless love but also as a picture of an unbalanced personality structure and a cycle of giving and receiving that is broken. This analysis questions the idealization of sacrifice in children's literature by emphasizing the importance of critical assistance to psychological messages in children's reading so that with Freudian literary criticism, this pattern is also integrated with current social problems.

Keywords


Freudian Psychoanalysis, Personality Structure, Children's Literature, Codependency, The Giving Tree

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.31004/jele.v%25vi%25i.3175

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