Created by Oscar Wilde, "The Selfish Giant", portrays elements of religious roots through the rhetorical strategies to make a well developed story as well as argument. At the beginning of Wilde's work, he illustrates the picture a mean and selfish giant who posted a fence around his garden. Obviously this garden symbolizes something otherwise the story would be an irrelevant and empty use of writing. This story can be interpreted through the lens of "Christianity" and a parallel analogy can be easily understood. Through the perspective of the religion of "Christianity," the garden is the "heart" of the giant. When the giant put a fence around his garden/heart, the little children/people he blessed, could not enter and obvious pain and sadness were witnessed for the Winter frost never left and spring could not come to develop his garden. The giant was sad until one day he heard a wonderful song, little did he know that part of his fence collapsed and the children and birds were frolicking in his garden. That small opening of his heard lead him to tear down his fence and allow "openness" for his garden. One day the giant saw a boy struggling to climb into a tree, so he helped the boy and felt good for what he did. The giant eventually got old and when he could not move , he saw a boy in the far corner of his garden, got excited and ran to him. As he recognized the boy was not the one he helped, the giant was furious. The giant talked to the boy who had nail marks on his and feet. This boy was symbolic of Jesus Christ. The boy (Jesus) offered to leave his garden and come to his garden (heaven). The giant took his offer and the children after school found the old giant dead buried in flowers from the trees he planted.

Wilde may or may not have been a "Christian," but the argument in his writing used heavy symbolism and parallelism to proclaim the Christian message.