{"id":1706,"date":"2020-01-29T23:45:06","date_gmt":"2020-01-29T23:45:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/?p=1706"},"modified":"2020-01-29T23:45:06","modified_gmt":"2020-01-29T23:45:06","slug":"kaitlins-response-to-oscar-wildes-the-selfish-giant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/uncategorized\/kaitlins-response-to-oscar-wildes-the-selfish-giant\/","title":{"rendered":"Kaitlin’s Response to Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In Oscar Wilde\u2019s short story,\u00a0The Selfish Giant<\/em>, Wilde shares the story of a Giant who returns to his beautiful garden after a seven-year hiatus. Upon his return, he sees children playing in his beautiful garden home and becomes enraged. He then builds a barricade and places a noticeboard on the wall which forbids any trespassers. The Giant then experiences an endless and isolated winter inside his garden where there he remains alone without any children or visitors. He eventually becomes tired of being alone and wishes for the end of winter and the beginning of spring. The Giant then lets the children back into his garden and the barricade is broken down.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In my interpretation of the story, I found that Oscar Wilde portrays disability through the Giant and the character\u2019s various highs and lows throughout his life in a similar pattern to those who are diagnosed with Bipolar disorder. The prolonged winter is a symbol for the Giant\u2019s depressive episode. The winter is described as a \u201ccloak\u201d that covers the garden which can be portrayed as a symbol of hiding and isolation. He separates himself from all of the outside world and remains alone without explanation. In contrast to his depressive episode, the springtime in the garden is a high for the character. The springtime breaks down the barricade guarding his garden and allows the children back into the Giants life. I interpreted the children and sunshine to represent his happiness and how he is removing himself from isolation, or a depressive episode. I found parallels between Oscar Wilde\u2019s Giant and Mary Shelley\u2019s character Victor in\u00a0Frankenstein<\/em>. Victor exhibited similar drastic highs and lows throughout his story. He was content and happy during his time creating his creature, and isolated while he was avoiding the monster and his peers when spending time alone laying in his bed.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The language used to surround the Giant also aligns with the societal stereotype of using negative descriptive language to describe those with disabilities even when it is unintentional. He is the \u201cselfish\u201d Giant for remaining in isolation and not sharing his home with the children in town. There are often negative terminologies used to display those struggling with mental illness because it is not a physically shown disable. Similarly in Simi Linton\u2019s \u201cReassigning Meaning\u201d article, she discusses the way that language is used to describe those with disabilities that was created from the outside community and how it makes those who are disabled seem like a \u201cburden or a problem\u201d and \u201cdevalued\u201d (Linton 22). Linton also discusses how it forced an \u201cus and them division of the population\u201d which is found in Wilde\u2019s story as the Giant is separated from the townspeople and not considered to be the same (Linton 23). This language is counterproductive to society and Wilde shows the divide in the community between the Giant and the rest of the community.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Wilde represents disability in\u00a0The Selfish Giant\u00a0<\/em>similarly to Mary Shelley in\u00a0Frankenstein<\/em>\u00a0because they both illustrate characters that portray disabilities that are not mentioned, and their characters are looked at negatively by their communities and seen as abnormal.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I pledge.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Word count: 522<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In Oscar Wilde\u2019s short story,\u00a0The Selfish Giant, Wilde shares the story of a Giant who returns to his beautiful garden after a seven-year hiatus. Upon his return, he sees children playing in his beautiful garden home and becomes enraged. He then builds a barricade and places a noticeboard on the wall which forbids any trespassers. … Continue reading “Kaitlin’s Response to Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":96,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcJhts-rw","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/96"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1706"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1709,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1706\/revisions\/1709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}