Analyse af 'The Garden' af Antonia Williams

The Garden by Antonia Williams is a story about a giant, his garden and some children. In this essay, I will objectively analyse Williams short story and interpret it. Some of the things I will focus on is the setting, characters and composition.

If we look at the world. It takes place in an imaginary world, as we can read on (l.8) there is a giant and he has a friend that is an ogre. Both of the creatures are imaginary and not real. The action takes place in the giant’s world, in his garden. We do not learn about the social environment they live in, but it feels like a medieval time, because of the castle that the giant lives in. It gives a particular atmosphere, it feels like an old story. The main character in this story is the giant and the children are there as well but we don’t get to know them as much as the giant. The giant starts out as the selfish giant (l.15). He does not want anyone in his garden except himself and that is selfish. But he is punished for this behaviour. The giant puts up a wall around his beautiful garden, so he has it all to himself, but there come consequences with his actions. The garden has feelings and some sort of personality. It loves the children and the joy they bring with them. So now with no children, it is winter all the time, there is no spring without the children. It reminds me of a story from Greek mythology. Hades steals Demeter’s daughter Persephone and takes her to the underworld. Without Persephone in the world, it becomes winter all year round. The same thing happens in the giant’s world, his garden. But Persephone comes back to the world and spring starts. The children also find a hole in the wall and comes back into the garden and spring starts. This is very the giant realises his own mistakes (l.51) and his big and old hearts melts. This is where he starts to change for the better. He helps the little boy up in the last tree and then he knocks down the wall around the garden. Then he plays with the children the rest of the day, but the child he kissed and helped has disappeared and it made him sad. It is the children that make him change for the better, it is the children that brings spring and happiness to him. The story starts in media res, so we do not know the start to it. After that, the events come in chronological order. The story ends when the giant is lying down with flowers all over him and he is dead. That is the final situation and it does not take any further development from that. The child comes to pick up the giant and take him to heaven. That is why he disappeared, he was an angel. There is more than one theme in this story. It is a story about life, the giant’s life and his life is better when he is sharing it with someone. The theme could be that your life is better when you are sharing with someone, and their joy makes you happy.