28 pages • 56 minutes read
Oscar WildeA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Trees, especially the little boy’s tree in the far corner of the garden, are perhaps the most important and prominent symbol in “The Selfish Giant.” There are 12 peach trees in the Giant’s garden, which, as the number of Jesus’s disciples, is often associated with perfection and completeness in Christianity. While the trees change throughout the seasons, they are always in bloom or fruitful when the children are near, paralleling their vibrancy and purity. Thus, the trees support the theme of Divine Providence in Nature, as the garden mirrors the morality of those within it.
The symbol of the tree also contributes to the characterization of the little boy as Christ or a Christ figure: “Tree” is a word sometimes used to reference the cross on which Christ died, making the moment the Giant helps the boy into the tree a symbolic crucifixion. The boy later reappears underneath the tree the Giant had helped him climb years before, which is now silver and gold and covered in white blossoms and fruit. This imagery, evocative of more-than-worldly purity and bountifulness, signals the Giant’s imminent entrance into paradise and the culmination of
By Oscar Wilde
An Ideal Husband
Oscar Wilde
A Woman of No Importance
Oscar Wilde
De Profundis
Oscar Wilde
Lady Windermere's Fan
Oscar Wilde
Lord Arthur Savile's Crime
Oscar Wilde
Salome
Oscar Wilde
The Ballad Of Reading Gaol
Oscar Wilde
The Canterville Ghost
Oscar Wilde
The Decay of Lying
Oscar Wilde
The Importance of Being Earnest
Oscar Wilde
The Nightingale and the Rose
Oscar Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde
The Soul of Man Under Socialism
Oscar Wilde