The Plot against the Giant — Summary

Wallace Stevens gives us a playful conspiracy: three girls plan how they will undo a coarse, clumsy “giant”—a yokel whetting his hacker. Each will run before him and offer a different kind of delicate beauty. The first surrounds him with faint, civilizing scents from geraniums and unseen flowers. The second displays bright cloths whose colors are as tiny as fish-eggs. The third, with a puff of breath, whispers soft “heavenly labials” into his rough world of gutturals. The speakers sound confident and slightly mocking, as if they are playing an elegant game. Fragrance, color, and speech are their weapons rather than force, and the mood is light, mischievous, and a little dreamlike. The poem suggests that refined, sensuous beauty can check, shame, and ultimately overpower whatever is crude and threatening.