The Selfish Giant

As a story written for children, “The Selfish Giant” employs a straightforward style so that even the youngest readers can understand its basic moral, which stresses the importance of charity. The Giant’s selfishness, for example, furnishes the story’s title and attracts frequent and explicit commentary from both the narrator and other characters. His character arc emerges from this context, and as he learns to share with and help others, his relationship to his garden likewise changes; he learns to love it not as his property, but for the happiness it brings to others.

This message unfolds within a Christian framework that would also have been familiar to young Victorian readers, and the story is one of Wilde’s most unambiguously Christian texts, employing relatively uncomplicated biblical allusions. The Giant’s garden in spring, with its lush vegetation and abundance of flowers, resembles the Garden of Eden in the Book of Genesis. Like Adam and Eve, the children who play in this garden are characterized by their innocence, as the Victorians believed children were born innately good; the children’s connection to spring, which disappears when the Giant evicts them, underscores their purity. The Giant’s banishing of the children from the garden also has biblical resonance, mirroring God’s banishing of Adam and Eve. Yet the story is not a direct allegory of humanity’s fall. Unlike Adam and Eve, the children have done nothing to warrant their expulsion; rather, it is the Giant who has sinned and must repent.

Though not a one-to-one parallel, this focus on The Journey of Contrition, Penance, and Redemption is in line with Christian moral standards. At the beginning of the story, the Giant sees nothing wrong with his actions, as evidenced by his argument that “[his] own garden is [his] own garden [...] any one can understand that” (58). That he questions why spring does not come to the garden once the children have left further underscores his ignorance of his “sin.” He does not recognize the Divine Providence in Nature—the way in which suffering and sorrow inevitably emanate from sin.

Tellingly, it is only the sight of the sad small boy, a Christ figure, that awakens the Giant to the reality of his selfishness, mirroring the Christian notion that humans are redeemed through Jesus Christ. The Giant’s elevation of the boy into the tree (a symbol of the cross) symbolically reenacts Jesus’s crucifixion, underscoring the necessity of Christ’s sacrifice to the Giant’s redemption. Wilde’s version of the crucifixion, however, emphasizes the penitent action of the Giant over the selfless love of Christ. As is true of many of Wilde’s works, action and good deeds are prioritized over mere thoughts, so it is not enough for the Giant simply to regret his selfishness. When winter returns as the Giant steps outside, this signals that the Giant must actively atone for his prior mistakes, which he does by helping the small child—an act that permanently restores the normal cycle of seasons.

The Giant’s selfless actions uphold the well-known biblical proverb, “thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Mark 12:31), a verse that was also important to Victorian philanthropic movements. Charity in the Christian sense is not merely generosity but rather something like goodwill, or even love. It is significant that the Giant comes to love the children, comparing them to the flowers of his beloved garden. In Christian teaching, such love for one’s neighbors is inextricably connected (though subsidiary) to the love of God, making the Giant’s particular attachment to the small boy noteworthy. The boy’s small stature, as well as his isolation and grief in the face of the other children’s happiness, recalls Jesus’s words, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40). This proves particularly true in “The Selfish Giant,” where details such as the stigmata that the boy later bears on his hands and feet suggest that he is Christ himself. As a Christian is expected to love God, the Giant loves this boy above all others. It is also this boy’s love that causes the Giant to love the other children, underscoring the notion that all love ultimately flows from and reflects God’s nature.

The story thus chronicles the Giant’s redemption through his acceptance of Christian virtues, highlighting a person’s ability to improve themself. However, it is not until the very end of the story that the Giant fully grasps Christian teachings. When he sees that someone has hurt the small boy, he initially threatens violence against the wrongdoer—a testimony to his affection for the boy, but one that is not in keeping with Christian ideals of mercy. The boy gently corrects the Giant, implying that true, Christ-like love consists of bearing suffering oneself rather than inflicting it on others, even for a “good” cause. He then welcomes the Giant to “Paradise,” confirming the Giant’s redemption.

Though heavily Christian in tone and symbolism, the story’s depiction of Selfishness, Selflessness, and Self-Reliance also engages with Victorian societal concerns. The Giant’s change from selfish to selfless only comes about with the help of the children, particularly the small boy. This subverts and lightly critiques the Victorian notion of self-reliance espoused by many charitable organizations and philanthropic groups. The story also satirizes the Giant’s legal defense of his property rights, which Wilde frames as at odds with what is good and natural (the children’s enjoyment of the garden).