The old man is apparently bed-ridden at the beginning of the tale. But, as most people know, once Charlie discovers the "Golden Ticket" and wants to take his grandpa (not his hardworking mother, of course) to the Wonka Factory, Grandpa miraculously climbs out of bed and in the space of about 1 minute, is singing and dancing quite vigorously with Charlie. Grandpa suddenly is so limber that he throws on his coat and out the door with Charlie he goes.
What a friggin' leech! Perfectly capable of sustaining himself on his own, or better yet, of contributing work/money to Charlie's family, he had laid about and mooched off his (I presume he is Charlie's mom's dad otherwise she would have killed him instantly when he revealed he could walk and dance) daughter and son-in-law.
Fast forward to the tour. The helpful Grandpa convinces Charlie to lag behind the factory tour and sneak into the Bubble Room to sample (after Wonka forbids explicitly forbids it) Fizzy Lifting Soda. This not only causes Charlie to almost be killed violently by the room exhaust fan but also "violates the contract" and were it not for Charlie's beneficent return of the Everlasting Gobstopper, would have cost Charlie the right to untold wealth. So, Grandpa is an intolerable leech, a gleeful rule-breaker, and endangers his only grandchild. And yet the movie does nothing to address these things.
One would think, with my cynical evisceration of Grandpa Bucket, that I would agree with Andrew's reader who eviscerates "the boy" from Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree:
I couldn't disagree more with Chaplain Mike; The Giving Tree is a horrid, horrid piece of work. It stars a little brat who takes and takes from this poor tree for the entire length of the book. The tree gives and gives and gives until it has literally nothing left; It becomes a pathetic, dying stump. It has nothing left for either itself or anyone else who comes by. And the book presents this as a good thing!Yes, and no. Certainly, "the boy" never gives anything back to the tree, not even love really. That's too bad. But the tree never suggests it needs the love of the boy.
I dislike the reader's suggestion that at the end of the story the tree is reduced to a "pathetic, dying stump." Surely this reader fears their own aging! When they get old, do they think they will be reduced to a 'pathetic, dying stump' in the eyes of their children?
What I want to know is if people would feel the same way about "the boy" if there were a sequel book? Silverstein's book focuses on the Tree; every page features the Tree. Imagine a book written with the boy in every page...
The boy comes and plays with the tree every day, eats apples, and plays in branches for fun. Later he falls in love. The woman he loves is beautiful, fun, and interesting. He loves her so dearly that he cuts the branches from his favorite old tree to build a home for her. Shortly after their marriage she gets pregnant. She dies in childbirth, holding his hand. Her and the baby both die. Something in him dies with her. He returns to the tree, angry at the world. He thinks if he just gets away from here, if he can just go find somewhere...an escape...he can heal the wound in him that tears him apart. The tree gives him its trunk and he sails away. He crosses the whole of the world, seeking a better, happier life. He fights in a war, then two, and watches his friends fall around him. After the wars he lives for a time in New York, and becomes wealthy. At the end of his days, he returns to his old home, ready to face his demons. He visits the graveyard for the first time...sees the gravestones of his wife and child, and falls to his knees and weeps for the life he could have had - the life they should have had with him.
His life was bitter, and tragic, filled with loss. Later, he slowly walks across a field, and comes across the stump of The Tree. He sits down heavily, tired with the weight of the world. He remembers his happy youth spent playing in this tree. Now the tree too is reduced to nothing, and has lost everything. Life is a tragedy, he laments. Then he slowly heads home.
I think people fill in the blanks in Silverstein's story with angry details about The Boy. He was selfish as a youth...so that must have continued into adulthood. He took and took from the tree as a boy and young man...so he must have been a greedy taker the rest of his days.
And we universally empathize with the selfless tree. But at the first page of the story, the tree is a massive, fully grown behemoth. Imagine with me, a prequel.
A tiny seedling is born in a field one spring morning. A hundred of its brothers and sisters sprout along with it. The little seedling is ambitious though, and has the tactical advantage of falling far enough from the mother tree that it can get good sunlight. The little seedling grows aggressively - angrily - and quickly begins to overshadow some of its siblings. Starved of light, they disappear. Seasons pass, and the little tree grows. It shrewdly invests most of its energy in its upper branches, and abandons lower ones. This helps it develop a canopy over its peers, and chokes them out.
Its roots begin a war of attrition with the other young apple trees. Because if its location in the field, it is able to send a taproot to a nearby creek, gaining precious water resources. A dry season comes, and wipes out many of its competitors.
Withing a few years, it has become so large it has eliminated all its competitors and now threatens its mother tree. Without regret...without feeling...it attacks, circumventing the root system of the mother tree and choking it out. A late frost comes, and the mother tree is finished. It slowly dies and falls away.
Suddenly faced with total victory, the tree finds itself completely alone. Conquest is great, the tree admits. But as a few years go by, the tree begins to feel lonely. Soon it realizes that it was the competition with its siblings that it loved. The intimate presence of other trees around it were what made each day interesting. Now it has nothing but an empty field to keep it company. Nothing but its own thoughts.
As the seasons go by, the tree laments its own stupid ambition. Why had it been so important to be the dominant tree? What was the point of winning if by winning it lost everyone it cared about? The tree begged God, Nature, or a freak storm to come by and take it out. It produced apples, hoping to have children...but its growth had wrecked the nearby soil so effectively that new seedlings could not grow. Barren, alone, and infinite, the tree despaired.
Until one day a boy came hopping across the field, and began to play in its branches. Desperate for this company, the tree promised itself that it would do whatever the boy wanted, as long as it could make this little boy happy...it would be happy.
These stories, of course, do not exist. Silverstein never wrote "The Giving Tree 2" or "Before The Giving Tree" because the little tale is meant to stand alone. We aren't supposed to judge "The Boy" or assume his actions outside of the narrative of the story. We are supposed to focus on the Giving Tree's happiness derived from its selflessness. That is all.
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