The Selfish Giant Character Analysis

The solution Wilde proposes to this this dilemma rests almost entirely on enlightening the upper class so they will come to see the importance of individuality. Though most critiques of socialist theory seem to assert that humans are too innately selfish in nature to ever accept an equal distribution of wealth or property, Peter Kuch reminds us that Wilde’s argument is based on how “common experiences and shared social conditions and a common culture form people’s consciousness, thereby affecting all the political decisions that they make” (6). According to Kuch, because one of Wilde’s main propositions is that “people have become conditioned to accept without question that individuality is equated with the ownership of property” (6), one can

If you could only realize that, you would not want to be rich’” (1085). An effective example of this teaching can be seen in “The Selfish Giant”, when the innocence and free-spiritedness of the children cause the Giant to notice how selfish he had been for refusing to let them play in his garden. The transformation from the Giant believing his self-worth was defined by his possession of the garden and his ability to keep others away from it to his realization that the garden itself was never what brought him happiness, but rather its intrinsic beauty (which could only be created by love), perhaps demonstrates, in the simplest way, how even the most selfish of the property owning class have the potential to develop a more “perfect” (1084) consciousness. Just as the Giant realizes “the children… [were] the most beautiful flowers of all” (285), Wilde believes a more perfect and Christlike consciousness will help one’s personality “grow naturally and simply, flowerlike, or as a tree grows” (1084) -- creating distinct themes of growth and progression that perhaps suggests that a once selfish, now enlightened consciousness of a Victorian aristocrat will begin to recognize the importance of the individuality of