The Education of Little Tree
| The Education of Little Tree | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Forrest Carter |
| Country | United States of America |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | Delacorte Press (USA) |
| Publication date | 1976 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Preceded by | The Vengeance Trail of Josey Wales |
| Followed by | Watch for Me on the Mountain |
The Education of Little Tree is a memoir-style novel written by Asa Earl Carter under the pseudonym Forrest Carter. Since its first publication by Delacorte Press in 1976, the book has been the subject of acclaim. Many people have been drawn to its message of simple living, tradition, and love of nature. However, The Education of Little Tree has also been the subject of controversy after the publication of an article on October 4, 1991, by Dan T. Carter (a history professor and distant cousin of Asa Carter) called "The Transformation of a Klansman" in the New York Times. This article described Asa Carter's past involvement with the Ku Klux Klan.[1]
The novel has spawned films, a sequel attempt, and a number of graduate theses and scholarly articles. In 1985, the University of New Mexico Press bought the book's rights. It has since sold millions of copies, a rare level of success for a book distributed by an academic press, and won the 1991 American Booksellers Association Book of the Year (ABBY) award.
Contents |
Plot summary [edit]
The fictional memoirs of Forrest "Little Tree" Carter begin in the late 1920s when, as the protagonist, his parents die and he is given over into the care of his Cherokee grandparents at the age of five years. The book was originally to be called "Me and Grandpa," according to the book's introduction. The story centers on a clever child's relationship with his Scottish-Cherokee grandfather, a man named Wales (an overlap with Carter's other fiction).
The boy's Cherokee Granpa and Cherokee "Granma" call him "Little Tree" and teach him about nature, farming, whiskey making, mountain life, society, love, and spirit by a combination of gentle guidance and encouragement of independent experience.
The story takes place during the fifth to tenth years of the boy's life, as he comes to know his new home in a remote mountain hollow. Granpa runs a small moonshine operation during Prohibition. The grandparents and visitors to the hollow expose Little Tree to supposed Cherokee ways and "mountain people" values. Encounters with outsiders, including "the law," "politicians," "guv'mint," city "slickers," and "Christians" of various types add to Little Tree's lessons, each phrased and repeated in catchy ways. (One of the syntactic devices the book uses frequently is to end paragraphs with short statements of opinion starting with the word 'which,' such as "Which is reasonable.")
The state eventually forces Little Tree into a Residential School, where he stays for a few months. At the school, Little Tree suffers from the prejudice and ignorance of the school's caretakers toward Indians and the natural world. Little Tree is rescued when his grandparents' Native American friend Willow John notices his unhappiness and demands Little Tree be withdrawn from the school.
At the end, the book's pace speeds up dramatically and its detail decreases; A year or so later, Willow John takes sick, sings the passing song,and then dies. Two years after that, Granpa dies from complications of a fall, telling the boy "It was good, Little Tree. Next time, it will be better. I'll be seein' ye.", before slipping away.
Early the following Spring after performing her Death Chant, Granma dies a peaceful death in her rocking chair on the front porch while Little Tree is away. The note pinned to her blouse reads: “Little Tree, I must go. Like you feel the trees, feel for us when you are listening. We will wait for you. Next time will be better. All is well. Granma.” Little Tree heads west with the two remaining hounds and works briefly on various farms in exchange for food and shelter.
The book ends just before the Great Depression after first one and then the other of Little Tree's last companions, two of Granpa's finest hounds, die, signaling his coming of age (Little Red falls through creek ice and Blue Boy dies a while later of old age), after which he moves on with his life, always remembering “The Way” which his grandparents instilled into his soul.
Literary, personal and political controversies [edit]
The book appeared during a blossoming period for Native American memoirs and genre fiction, both before and after it was shown to be a fictional work posing as factual memoir. The controversies and discussions surrounding the story are generally centered on these main areas:
- the clash of the factual details depicted in the book with those of the author's life
- the clash between the cultural descriptions given in the book and traditional language and culture as reported by Cherokee sources
- the possible legitimacy of fictionalized memoirs by a member of a privileged class depicting life within an underprivileged class
- the book's possible racial sympathies and the possible intentions of the author
These issues are magnified by the author's racism earlier in life and the fact that little personal information is known about Carter or his exact state of mind, outside of reports from his wife, between his withdrawal from political life and the publication of The Education of Little Tree. Carter had been an active participant in several White supremacist organizations, including the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens' Council. He was also a speechwriter for Alabama Governor George Wallace, for whom he allegedly wrote Wallace's famous line "Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." Although Carter claimed to be part Cherokee, in 1970 he ran for governor of Alabama on a White supremacist platform.
In the years following his active political engagement, Carter left Alabama, changed his name, and began his second career as an author, taking care to conceal his background. He even claimed categorically in a 1976 New York Times article that he, Forrest, was not Asa Carter.[2]
It is believed by some that Carter wrote The Education of Little Tree from his childhood memories of his Cherokee uncle, though his brother has said the family has no American Indian members.[3] The publisher's remarks in the original edition of the book inaccurately describe Carter as "Storyteller in Council" to the Cherokee Nation. When Carter's background was widely publicized in 1991, the book was reclassified by the publisher as fiction. Today, a debate continues as to whether the book's lessons are altered by the identity of the author. As award-winning Native American author Sherman Alexie has said, "Little Tree is a lovely little book, and I sometimes wonder if it is an act of romantic atonement by a guilt-ridden White supremacist, but ultimately I think it is the racial hypocrisy of a White supremacist."[4]
Members of the Cherokee Nation have said that so-called "Cherokee" words and many customs in The Education of Little Tree are inaccurate, and some have said that the novel's characters are stereotyped. Several scholars and critics have agreed with this assessment, adding that Carter's treatment of Native Americans possibly plays into the romantic but racist conceit of the "Noble Savage."
When Carter died in 1979, he was working on The Wanderings of Little Tree, a sequel to The Education of Little Tree, and on a screenplay version of the book. Twelve years after Carter's death, the fact that Forrest Carter was actually Asa Earl Carter was revealed in a 1991 New York Times exposé by Dan T. Carter, a distant cousin and history professor. The supposed autobiographical truth of The Education of Little Tree was revealed to be a hoax.
In 2007, Oprah Winfrey pulled the book from a list of recommended titles on her website. While Winfrey had promoted the book on her TV show in 1994, calling the novel "very spiritual," after learning the truth about Carter she said she "had to take the book off my shelf."[4]
Prior to the public controversy surrounding the author's identity and legitimacy, The Education of Little Tree was critically acclaimed and won the 1991 American Booksellers Association Book of the Year (ABBY) award. In 1997, The Education of Little Tree was adapted into a made-for-TV movie but was instead given a theatrical release.
References [edit]
- Carter, Dan T. "The Transformation of a Klansman." New York Times, October 4, 1991.
- "Southern History, American Fiction: The Secret Life of Southwestern Novelist Forrest Carter." In Rewriting the South: History and Fiction, ed. Lothar Honnighausen and Valeria Gennaro Lerda (Tübingen: Francke, 1993). 286-304.
- Gates, Henry Louis Jr. "'Authenticity', or the Lesson of Little Tree". New York Times Book Review, November 24, 1991.
- Dave, Randall. The tall tale of Little Tree and the Cherokee who was really a Klansman
- McGurl, Mark. "Learning from Little Tree: The Political Education of the Counterculture." Yale Journal of Criticism, Volume 18, Number 2, Fall 2005, pp. 243–267.
Notes [edit]
- ^ Carter, Dan T. "The Transformation of a Klansman". New York Times, October 4, 1991.
- ^ "Is Forrest Carter Really Asa Carter? Only Josey Wales May Know for Sure" by Wayne Greenhaw, The New York Times August 26, 1976.
- ^ "The Real Education of Little Tree"
- ^ a b "Disputed Book Pulled From Oprah Web Site" by Hillel Italie, Associated Press, November 6, 2007.
