I’m sure it will surprise no one that the founder of StoryMakers is an extraordinary gift-giver. After a recent trip to Dublin, Ireland, Melina gifted me a tiny edition of fairy stories with even tinier illustrations—a perfect treasure! The collection of stories is entitled The Happy Prince and Other Tales, and it was written in the late 1880s by Oscar Wilde during his early days of parenthood. Wilde is known for his witty prose and plays and, of course, his tragically sensationalized romantic life, so you may not be familiar with his collections of writing for children—delightful stories filled with beautiful imagery, memorable characters, and occasional elements of deeply Christian allegory.
My favorite tale in this tiny collection is “The Selfish Giant.” It tells the story of a giant who builds a wall around his beautiful garden and forbids the local children from playing in it, only to discover that, without the love of the children, his garden transforms into a wintry fortress where only howling winds and endless snow dare to visit. Finally one day, the children sneak back into the garden.
At one point in the story, before the giant’s conversion, the children have found their way back into the garden but are afraid of being caught. When the giant hears them and comes out of his house, they run in fear. Except for one small boy who does not see the giant because he is too busy crying over his inability to get into the tree he desperately wishes to climb. While the boy wails with his back turned, the giant gently lifts him up into the highest branches of the tree. From his high tree throne, the astonished boy flings his arms around the giant’s neck and kisses him for all the children to see. It is a tender and powerful pronouncement of the giant’s changed heart. This special boy disappears and we get the sense at the end that, even in his now-happy garden, the giant longs for the little boy. In the story’s final scene, the boy reappears, now with nail wounds in his hands and feet (“Wait, he’s JESUS?!?” said my seven-year-old): “These are the wounds of love,” says the boy before telling the giant it is time for him to come to the boy’s garden called “Paradise.” The final line of the story describes the children finding their giant lying under the tree covered in tiny white flowers.
The entire relationship between the boy and the giant is rich with Gospel allegory. But in the final garden scene, Wilde calls in all the Easter references. My kids and I had so much fun hunting for all the “Easter eggs” in this delightful story and trading theories about the many layers of possible meanings. Wherever you are this Easter season, I hope this tiny tale will remind you that the “wounds of love” have vanquished not only our selfish hearts, but Death entirely. We, like the giant, will find our deepest longing met with the words: “Today, you will be with me in Paradise.”
Written by, Katherine McNulty - Chair of the SM Board
You can read “The Selfish Giant” by Oscar Wilde here.
