42 pages • 1 hour read
Forrest CarterThe Education of Little Tree
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1976A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Coming of Age
The growth of Little Tree from child to adult is central to the plot of this novel. At the beginning of the novel, Asa Earl Carter introduces Little Tree at the funeral of his mother. In these first moments, he is young and inexperienced in the ways of the world around him. Even so, he demonstrates an early aptitude for personal agency, for when the adults cannot decide who will raise him, he makes the decision himself by clinging to Granpa’s leg. Even his own narration establishes his purposeful demeanor from a very young age, for he states, “Granma had kept her eyes on the ground, but Granpa had looked at me, over the crowd, and so I edged to him across the yard and held onto his leg and wouldn’t turn loose even when they tried to take me away” (1). In addition to showing his resolve, Little Tree’s desperation to hold onto his grandfather also represents his desperation to hold onto his youth and his innocence. He does not want to be separated from his family, and he is not yet ready to venture beyond his family structure to face the bigger world. And so, he clings to his grandfather’s leg. Little Tree’s naivety and inexperience at this point in the novel is further emphasized when the bus driver stereotypes his grandparents and induces the passengers to laugh. In this situation, Little Tree mistakes their laughter for friendliness, believing “they was friendly and didn’t take offense because we didn’t have a ticket” (2). The scene establishes that as a young boy, he does not yet understand the harsh social injustices that often divide the people around him; this is a lesson he will learn with time.
Each chapter is designed to reflect a significant moment in Little Tree’s education and social development. As he helps his grandparents in their daily lives, he learns the importance of protecting the natural world, working hard, and striving to understand other people for who they truly are. In Chapter 5, “I Kin Ye, Bonnie Bee,” his grandparents introduce the concept of “kinning” as an action—a deliberate attempt to deeply empathize with and understand another human being. As the narrative states, “Granpa and Granma had an understanding, and so they had a love. Granma said the understanding run deeper as the years went by, and she reckined it would get beyond anything mortal folks could think upon or explain” (38). This moment is significant in Little Tree’s coming-of-age story because he begins to conceptualize what it means to love and understand other people, and he applies that knowledge to his future interactions.
In the concluding chapter of the book, “The Passing Song,” the narrative comes full circle. Instead of his mother’s passing, it is now his grandparents who pass away. And instead of clinging to the familiar and the safe, he ventures away. “I slipped out of the cabin…I walked down the hollow trail and taken the cutoff trail. I was not fullering Granpa” (272). With this statement, it becomes clear just how much Little Tree has grown and changed since the first chapter of the novel. He no longer needs to cling to safety; instead, he can safely venture out to face the world and address any issues that arise around him. Ultimately, he is able to cope with the loss of his grandfather because he knows that his grandfather’s spirit is still part of him and part of nature. Little Tree is now ready to face the world on his own, and he does so as he works to make a living for himself until he finds a mountain of his own to live on.
The Value of Quality Work
After Little Tree arrives at his grandparents’ cabin and learns to respect and value nature, Granpa introduces him to his trade—whiskey-making. He emphasizes the importance of quality work by using the example of a tailor, stating that some tailors take pride in their work while others don’t; in Granpa’s estimation, “your judgment of the tailoring trade was dependent on which kind of tailor ye went by” (65); likewise, Granpa implies that in order to make a quality product worth buying, one must take personal and professional pride in one’s work. This explanation makes Little Tree want to take the trade seriously, because he wants to make his grandfather proud. This philosophical trend becomes even more important when his grandfather shows the boy their family’s whiskey-maker’s mark and tells him that he now owns half of it. This gesture makes a deep impression on Little Tree and emphasizes the level of responsibility he now holds. As Little Tree says, “This was the first time I had ever owned anything, as to call it mine. So, I was right proud of our mark, and seen to it, as much as Granpa, that we never turned out no bad whiskey under our mark” (70). By giving Little Tree a sense of ownership, Granpa also gives Little Tree some of the weight of that ownership. He must learn quickly learn to take pride in the work that they do and make sure that he upholds the quality that their mark has come to represent to Granpa’s customers.
The value that Little Tree places on hard work, and on the quality of the work he and Granpa do, also comes full circle at the end of the novel. After Granpa has passed away, Little Tree takes it upon himself to keep working the still and making a quality product under the family’s mark. However, he soon recognizes that he cannot create the same high quality of whiskey that he and his grandfather did together, so he buries the still and gives up the trade, stating, “I was not much good at it, and had not learned the trade as I had ought to. I knew Granpa would not want anybody else using it to turn out bad wares” (215). Rather than continuing to produce whiskey that he believes is not up to the expected standard, he endeavors to find another job at which he can produce good quality work. Thus, even when his solo whiskey-making fails, Little Tree keeps working hard and respecting the land by helping others to cultivate it for growth. While Little Tree’s example is an extreme representation of this larger theme, for he gives up on a trade because he judges himself to be less than exemplary at the task, the act also demonstrates Little Tree’s commitment to hard work and quality products.
Respect for Nature
Little Tree grows considerably as a character throughout the novel, largely because of the respect he gives nature and the respect that nature gives him in return. When he is on the mountain, he learns everything he can about the wildlife that surrounds him and comes to recognize the distinct types of birds, their habits, and the reasons for their various actions. The depth of Little Tree’s learning is most clearly demonstrated when he gets the chance to use his knowledge to outwit the scheming rival whiskey-traders, Mr. Chunk and Mr. Slick, and treat them to a miserable night on the mountain due to their relative inexperience in the wild. Using these two disreputable characters, Carter presents the experiences of those who do not respect nature in a negative light. Their trip up the mountain is difficult, and while Little Tree has no difficulty climbing, “they kind of staggered along behind [him]” (128). Their ignorance knows no bounds, for they lie down in poison ivy, are afraid of mere bear signs, and disturb the peace of the night by yelling and screaming in fright at the sound of a screech owl. Granpa demonstrates his own contempt for such ignorance, stating that “if they didn’t settle down, they would disturb practical all the bird and animals on the mountainside” (131). The two whiskey traders clearly have no respect for nature, nor do they respect the way of life that Little Tree and his grandparents have. Because of this disregard, their journey on the mountain is presented as a more difficult challenge; they do not listen to the advice of others and do not take the dangers of nature seriously, nor do they appreciate nature’s inherent beauty.
Unlike these interlopers, however, Little Tree learns to judge situations of safety or danger based on the behavior of the animals around him. For example, he feels safe on the mountain in part because of how the bird reacts to him. He states, “Bird dipped and fluttered all along the trail, dipping down at my head, teasing. Mockingbirds will do this if they know you like them. Which I do” (133). With this passage, his goal is to establish the fact that being familiar with the patterns of the natural world will allow travelers in the woods to feel confidence rather than unreasoning fear; nature does not have to be an enemy. Therefore, Little Tree often presents his own experiences in nature as pleasant. One example of this is when he returns home from the orphanage and encounters the stream for the first time since his forced departure. His description of this reunion employs personification to convey his intimate familiarity with the stream, for he says, “I run and laid down and turned my face to the water while Granpa waited. The spring branch slapped me light, and run over my head and felt for me—and sung louder and louder” (201). He rarely has negative experiences while exposing himself to nature, and if he does, it is only because of a mistake that he acknowledges and subsequently corrects.
