The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde ||Compulsory English || Grade 11 || Summary

Every day after school, a group of local children play in the Giant's Garden. There they enjoy fresh fruit, beautiful flowers, and sweetly singing birds, as well as a comfortable open space for their play. Their idyllic playtime does not last, however—the Giant returns home from a seven-year vacation, and in his shock and outrage at finding intruders in his garden, drives the children away. Selfishly, he proclaims that the only person who should play in his garden is himself, and he enforces this with a high brick wall around his property. On this wall he hangs a sign which reads, “TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED.”

The children, despondent, try playing in the street instead, but to no avail. They find themselves continually drawn to the garden where they used to play, and they spend their afternoons simply loitering around the walls, wishing they could return to how things used to be. The Giant, meanwhile, is also miserable, because his property is locked in a perpetual winter. Spring, Summer and Autumn displeased by the Giant’s selfishness, withdraw from the garden entirely, leaving it to the forces of Winter to make their new playground. The Snow, the Frost, the North Wind, and the Hail make mischief all over the Giant’s property, disturbing his peace and keeping his garden lying dormant year-round.  After about a year of this terrible winter, the Giant is awoken by the sound of a linnet singing outside his window. He looks out to see that he children have returned to the garden, having sneaked inside through a hole in the wall. They have brought springtime with them, and the garden is flourishing once more.

Moved by this sight, the Giant realizes the error of his ways and wishes to make amends to the children. He spies a poor little boy in the furthest corner of the garden, crying as he fails to climb the tree there. The child’s misery is so intense that it remains winter in that small part of the garden. His heart melting with pity, the Giant approaches—inadvertently driving the other children away, as they still fear him—and places the child up in the tree’s high branches. No sooner than he does this, the tree blossoms all over, and the little boy kisses the Giant affectionately. The other children, realizing that the Giant now means no harm, return to the garden, ecstatic.

The Giant knocks down the wall around his garden, and thenceforth his property is open to the neighborhood children. Every day after their lessons, the children go to their new friend’s garden for hours of play.

Over time, the Giant comes to cherish the children far more than anything he owns, even his garden. He has benefited from their friendship, and in his old age he finds no greater pleasure than watching them play from the comfort of his armchair. He never stops wondering, however, what happened to his first little friend, the boy who embraced and kissed him. This child has never been seen since.

The Giant finally receives his answer when, one morning, he sees the child once more beside the tree in his garden—the child is evidently no older than he had once been, and the tree has been transformed into gold and silver. The boy’s hands and feet have been wounded by nails driven through them, and after an initial moment of confusion the Giant realizes that this is no ordinary child, but the Christ Child. Christ commends the Giant for his kindness of years ago, and for the life of kindness he’d lived since. As reward, he welcomes him into Paradise. That afternoon, the children discover the Giant’s body beneath the tree, covered in white blossoms.