The Selfish Giant

Shortly after the children all return to the garden, the Giant discovers one particularly small boy who cannot climb into a tree. The child is so sad that winter remains in his corner of the garden, where spring has returned everywhere else. It is this child’s acceptance of the Giant’s kindness that leads to the other children’s return, as he shows the others that they do not need to fear the Giant. To the Giant’s dismay, the boy disappears after this, and the neighborhood children do not know where he went or where he can be found.

Though he at first appears to be an ordinary child, the little boy represents the story’s clearest biblical allusion and underscores its Christian allegory. After many years, the little boy returns to the garden—unaged, but with wounds on each of his hands and feet. These wounds evoke the stigmata, or the wounds Jesus received on being nailed to the cross. Victorian readers would likely also recognize the symbolic significance of the tree the boy appears beneath, which is a term often used to refer to the cross. Additionally, the boy’s disappearance and reappearance in the same form recall Christ’s resurrection, or perhaps the second coming. These symbols of Christ’s sacrifice to redeem humankind illuminate the invitation the boy extends to the Giant: to join him in the garden of “Paradise.” With these biblical allusions, Wilde suggests that Christian charity brings not only earthly but eternal rewards.