The Selfish Giant free essay sample

Olufemi Akinrinlola English 1302 Professor R. Perrard June 29th, 2011 The Selfish Giant In short story, The Selfish Giant, there are many literary elements construed. Though the paper is meant for the eyes of children, there are many motifs that the adult eye can spot. Not only was the entire short story a metaphor to the rewards of selflessness, but also displays a sense of comparison within the ever changing seasons. The story begins with the children of the piece frolicking in the garden of the giant. Due to his selfishness he kicked the children out of the garden, solely because he wanted to enjoy the fruits of his garden by himself.His actions spurned the attraction of certain seasons that shadow sorry and gloom, basically the opposite of happiness. There is a deeply embedded message in this story, and its meaning yearns to be discovered by the authors subtle yet grandeur attempts at making them easily recognized. We will write a custom essay sample on The Selfish Giant or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The way by which the author used a little children’s story to represent the idea of selflessness can be seen in multiple ways. The first way that we can blatantly notice, is the fact that the giants actions spurned a negative even though the children’s petty playful actions were nowhere near hurting a fly.So why should the children be punished for doing nothing wrong? There is no real reason besides the selfishness of the giant by wanting the garden all to himself. And through the results of his actions, sorrow ran rampant throughout his garden, thus teaching him a lesson and causing him to become less selfish. An underlying instance that may have escaped the normal reader’s eye is the inclusion of another motif, which is the little boy that was crying as the symbol for that of Jesus. Though many may not know the bible story, to those that do, it is evident that him and the boy drew major comparison.In the short story, the child cried because he could not reach the tree to embrace is warmth and thus ending the situation in the garden. In the end the giant helped him and earned the trust of the kids who returned to the garden to play. In the bible, the lord shows us the way, and through doing the right thing we can receive the rewards that he has set out for us. In the end the giant, due to his change of heart and persistence with seeking out the lord, which is metaphorically the little boy, as he met his death, he was granted entry into the garden of the lord, which is metaphorically heaven.The story’s message is a rather reoccurring ideal in the bible. The author also makes association with the winter season and anything dealing with the cold as â€Å"anti-love†. It seems that a reoccurring theme in many walks of life is that cold signifies unhappiness. In real life situations the cold generally represents loneliness, because without the warmth of another, one can be considered to be alone. It also signifies death. When your heart stops beating, fresh blood isn’t being pumped and no activity is occurring in the body, thus causing the cold of the outside world to set in.Due to the lack of a beating heart, the cells in your body turn blue from lack of oxygen, and blue can definitely be a color reminiscent of something cold. There are so many ways we can take real world applications and intertwine them with that of the mechanics of this book’s motifs. But of the two stated the most relevant would obviously be that of loneliness. The giants actions of relinquishing the children of a place to play caused the already happiness of the place to abandon his garden, thus making him companionless.And when without another, the loneliness and cold start to set in just as it did in the Giant’s garden. The way by which the author portrayed these motifs, was definitely necessary to get his views across on an ever deeper level. The story The Selfish Giant, was a compelling piece urging me to think about my actions for that they my lead me to a road that I don’t want to be a part of. In context his words though geared toward that of a child, can bring even a person of my age deeper insight on a subject that is so widely viewed as a miniscule gesture. From this story I can see that selflessness definitely goes a long way.