OSCAR WILDE'S 'THE SELFISH GIANT'

1. Prepared by
Dr. Sheelu Singh Bhatia

2. "The Selfish Giant" is a short fantasy story for children
by the Irish author Oscar Wilde . It was first
published in 1888 in the anthology The Happy Prince
and Other Tales, which, in addition to its title story,
also includes "The Nightingale and the Rose", "The
Devoted Friend" and "The Remarkable Rocket".

3. A group of children would play in the garden
belonging to a giant each day after school. One day,
the giant returns home from a seven year visit to his
friend, a Cornish ogre. Furious at finding the children
trespassing, he chases them out and proceeds to build
a wall around his garden. He erects a sign reading:
TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED." The
children are very sad, as playing on the road is a poor
substitute.

4. When spring comes, life begins to blossom
everywhere except the giant's garden, where it
remains winter. A single flower blooms but sinks back
into the earth when it reads the sign on the gate. The
Snow and the Frost decide to stay in the garden, and
invite the North Wind and Hail to join them. Seasons
pass but it stays winter in the giant's garden.

5. One morning, the giant hears a linnet singing outside
his window, and is astonished to find the spring
weather has finally come to his garden. He sees the
cause- some children have snuck through a hole in his
wall and are playing in his garden. He sees a small boy
crying because he cannot reach the lowest branches.
This corner of the garden is still covered in snow. The
giant is moved by pity, realizing how selfish he has
been. He enters the garden, the children flee and
winter returns.

6. But he lifts the litle crying boy and places him in the tree,
telling the children the garden is theirs now. The children
return to play and the garden turns to spring once more.
The children return but the crying boy has vanished. Over
the years, the giant grows old and watches the children
play from his armchair. One day he sees the small boy
under the same tree, which has turned beautiful and
white. The giant approaches and sees the boy has wounds
on his hands and feet. He asks the boy who injured him, so
that the giant may avenge him, but the child says they are
the wounds of love, and as the giant allowed him to play in
his garden, so would the boy take the giant to his garden
in Paradise. Later, the other children find the giant lying
dead under the tree, covered in white blossom .

8. Children playing in the garden after school
Children were playing hide and seek and heard a
great voice boom out
Children peered out of their hiding places to see a
very angry giant
The Giant decided to come home after living for seven
years with his friend, the Cornish ogre
The Giant doesn't want to see the children laughing
and shouting
Children ran away

9. When he arrived he saw
the children playing in
the garden and became
very upset, he kicked all
the children out and put
a huge wall up with a
notice board that read:
Now the poor children
had nowhere to play.

10. The Giant decided to build a high wall with spikes
around the garden
Every day the children poked their noses through the
bars of the gate and looked longingly at the garden
and sadly they wandered off to play on the hard,
dusty road
The Winter came. Snow covered the ground with a
thick white mantle and Frost painted the trees with
silver

11. The giant wanted the Spring to come
Spring came, the Snow and Frost disappeared and
flowers pushed their heads up against the ground and
birds sang merrily but in the giant's garden the Snow,
the Frost, the North Wind still danced through the
bare branches of the trees
Spring refused to come to the giant's garden.

12. The Giant was lying in the bed one morning, feeling
sorry for himself.
Heard blackbird singing
Giant lept over to the window and beamed with
pleasure.
The Snow and Frost were gone
Every tree had burst into blossom
Every tree held one of the children whom the giant
frightened away
The children crept into the garden by a hole in the
wall

13. The Spring rushed in after the children
One child was standing on the ground
The child was crying bitterly as he was to small to
reach even the lowest branch of the smallest tree
Giant moved to pity
Giant knew why the Spring would not go to his
garden
The giant knocked down the walls and turned it
into a children's playground

14. Every day after school the children came to play in
the giant's beautiful garden
Every day the giant ask them the same question
whether the little boy was with them
The children do not know where to find the boy and
the only time the saw him was when he knocked
down the walls
Giant felt sad because he loved the little boy very
much and only the sight of the children playing made
him happy
Giant grew old and weak and could no longer play
with the children

15. A winter morning the giant was sitting by his
bedroom window and saw the most beautiful tree he
had ever seen
The tree's golden branches were covered with delicate
white blossom and silver fruit and underneath it
stood the little boy
The giant was happy the boy came back
When he reached the little boy, the boy's face was red
with anger.

16. The giant was angry
The child smiled gently and asked the giant to follow
him
The child told the giant to play in his garden which
was called Paradise
That afternoon the children ran into the garden to
play in the snow and found the dead giant lying
peacefully under a tree, covered with white blossom.

17. The Giant:
The major character in this story is the Giant; he is the
protagonist as well as the wicked person of the story.
In the beginning of the story we ca find him as a
selfish person but in the part of the story we found
him as a kind and virtues person.

18. A young boy:
Another importance character of the story is a little
boy whose entry is supernatural and has supernatural
qualities. He is a child who brings the catastrophe in
the story and the end of the story was happy.

19. The story is being told from the narrator’s point of
view

20. The setting of The
Selfish Giant takes place
in a marvelous garden.
With soft green grass,
beautiful flowers like
stars. With 12 peach
trees.

21. The theme of this story is that having a warm heart
will make you happier. When the giant had a heart
of cold it turned everything and his environment cold
and depressing too. When he had a heart filled with
warmness he was happier and so was everything
around him. Basically you choose the way you want to
live your life. You can live your life with a cold heart
or a heart of warmth.

22. It is a very simple story and winter wants to say that if
we give happiness to others we also feel happiness
with the smile of the person. It is a quit touching and
moral story. Yes, it is true after reading the story one
would be really happy. The language of the story is
quite easy and sentence structure is also classified in
simple language.