The lush and pleasing descriptions of the tranquil garden at the beginning of "The Selfish Giant" quickly establish the story's fairytale mood:
It was a large lovely garden, with soft green grass. Here and there over the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars, and there were twelve peach-trees that in the spring-time broke out into delicate blossoms of pink and pearl, and in the autumn bore rich fruit. The birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly that the children used to stop their games in order to listen to them.
Wilde's simple yet animated style, the speaker's matter-of-fact tone, and the colorful imagery come together to fill the story's exposition with a light and happy mood. In addition, this opening passage has a smooth and melodic sound to it. Replete with vowels and soft /s/ sounds, the passage also includes several alliterative moments: "large lovely," "green grass," "pink and pearl," "sang so sweetly." This alliteration enriches the overall sound of the language and invites readers to feel like one of the children luxuriating in the story's idyllic setting.
The lightness of this fairytale ambience remains throughout the story—perhaps because the reader expects, given the typical structure of fairytales, that it will have a happy ending. Nonetheless, the happy mood of the beginning is quickly transformed with the Giant's return. The "notice-board" he puts up is not only a signpost within the plot, but also a signpost that alerts the reader to a shift in the mood. From the moment the sign appears until its destruction, the mood is dreary. When the Giant comprehends his wrongdoings and removes the sign, the mood is once again happy. This mood remains, until the return of the boy. Then, the mood is briefly dramatic until the boy reveals that his wounds are "wounds of Love" and that he has come to bring the Giant to heaven. After this, the story ends on an ethereal note, when the children discover the Giant's dead body "covered with white blossoms."
