8/14/2019 class discussion the education of little tree.docx

1/1

The Education of Little Tree was a book that I enjoyed, and when I watched

the movie, it kind of took away a lot from my previous liking of the book. I shifted

my attention more towards the film, and part of this can be attributed to our class

discussions comparing the two.

Our discussion in class led me to realize a lot of the hypocrisy that The

Education of Little Tree contained and in fact has been my favorite class discussionyet. I really appreciated all of the debate that arose out of our class discussion

specifically revolving around the authors hypocrisy in Little Trees age and his

voice in the book. Once we took a closer look at some of the facts, such as how

young Little Tree was supposed to be, in the book, it began to make less and less

sense at how this book could at all be seen as anything besides a good story. I agreed

with Professor Lunsfords standpoint that was based upon the argument of this

book containing a lot of mature thoughts and ideas that could not possibly be

demonstrated in a five year old. I remember that one of my fellow classmates was

disagreeing, by saying that yes, a five year old could possess the maturity and

understanding of some of the ideas that are suggested as his throughout the book.

But even though I did not speak up in class, I wanted to point out that it seemedawfully unlikely to me, in my experience of working with many five year olds at an

afterschool program as well as a summer camp program, that no, five year olds

generally do not possess the ability to be able to digest and chose thoughtful

reactions of such mature ideas such as the things that Little Tree faced. It is not to

say that he is a bad kid, but it is just the way that five year olds are and I personally

do not believe that Little Tree had the developmental ability to create the ideas that

he was spoken for by author Forrest Carter.

Another thing that was discussed in class was some of the racial connotations

that were brought into The Education of Little Tree. I myself had wondered about

this while I was reading because I had noticed that the idea and talk about the

abrasive experiences with white culture. Then, upon hearing Doctor Lunsfordscomment in class about Forrest Carters previous support or involvement within the

Klu Klux Klan, I recognized some of what had seemed like guilt-ridden writing and

was pretty disappointed with the author.

Overall the class discussion took away some of my liking of this book, as I

realized how fictional it was. I do not have a problem with fiction writing but The

Education of Little Tree seemed to have been written without the original intent of

fiction and so it takes away a lot of credibility towards the author. I might have

enjoyed the book better, having either known all of this from the beginning or never

finding out at all.