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Once Upon A Time Analysis

Nadine Gordimer's short story "Once Upon a Time" takes place in apartheid-era South Africa and focuses on a family that becomes increasingly paranoid about threats from the outside world. They install various security devices to protect themselves, ultimately disrupting their lives. Although no real threats are encountered, the family acts on rumors and fears. Their son is later killed climbing through the barbed wire they installed on top of the wall meant to protect them. The story warns about allowing fear and conformity to isolate oneself from one's community.

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251 views

Once Upon A Time Analysis

Nadine Gordimer's short story "Once Upon a Time" takes place in apartheid-era South Africa and focuses on a family that becomes increasingly paranoid about threats from the outside world. They install various security devices to protect themselves, ultimately disrupting their lives. Although no real threats are encountered, the family acts on rumors and fears. Their son is later killed climbing through the barbed wire they installed on top of the wall meant to protect them. The story warns about allowing fear and conformity to isolate oneself from one's community.

Uploaded by

Pushkar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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ONCE UPON A TIME ANALYSIS

Nadine Gordimer's short story "Once Upon a Time" focuses on a family living in apartheid-era
South Africa. At first, the family is happy. However, they soon become paranoid about the world
around them. Rumors spread of migrant workers breaking into houses. To protect themselves,
they install a variety of security devices ranging from an alarm system to a tall brick wall topped
with barbed wire. In trying to "protect" themselves from unseen robbers, they disrupt and ultimately
destroy their way of life. Although they are never directly confronted by any threats, they act upon
rumors and paranoia. One day, the little boy of the family reads a book of fairy tales and decides
to become the brave knight who braves the tunnel of thorns and clibes through the tunnel of
barbed wire on the top of the wall surrounding his house. The very device that was meant to
protect him and his family from the outside world caused his own demise.
Written during apartheid, Gordimer’s story introduces the family and their willingness to
"protect" themselves from the community around them. In the story, the family interprets the world
around them through the lenses of prejudices and stereotypes, instead seeing things for what they
really are and living based on their own experiences. They separate themselves from the poorer,
black migrant workers because that is what they are told to do, that is what the people around
them think is right. They turn a blind eye to the segregation around them, automatically assuming
the worst. They construct walls topped with barbed wire and install alarm systems to “protect” and
separate themselves from a community they know little to nothing about.
“Once Upon a Time” contains a powerful message that we have the obligation to learn
about the communities that we live in. Instead of shielding ourselves from the reality of the world
around us, it is our duty to accept our place in our community, and if we are not satisfied with it, to
change it. We should interact with our communities and acknowledge both the good and the bad,
instead of ignoring the “ men [that] might now be interred in the most profound of tombs” “in the
stopes and passages of gold mines” that “bring uneasy strain to the balance and counterbalance of
brick, cement, wood and glass that hold it as a structure around” us (232). Furthermore, the short
story encourages us not to be followers in our community. If we act based upon only what others
tell us and allow this to affect our views and opinions, and if we rely on others to tell us what is
wrong and what is right, then something is bound to go awry. We should not conform to the people
around us, but fight for our ideals and for the injustices that surround us.
This speaks to the overarching theme of conformity in the texts that I have read this year.
Whether or not the family in this story had reason to do what they did and separate themselves
from the world, that doesn’t change the fact that they followed what others were doing despite
having no direct reason to do so.

In Nadine Gordimer’s “Once Upon a Time”, the most important element is its theme. The entire
story is set about telling its readers that human beings create their own destruction. The setting of
the two parts of the story is important as well as the ironic structure presented. Suspense and tone
also add to the final effect. All this is brought together to leave readers shocked, ready to rethink
the importance of things in their own lives.
The story begins with the author presenting a situation in which great fear exists. She hears a
noise and is afraid of a burglar or murder inside her house. However, she soon comes to realize
that her fear was not something real, but that the noise causing her fear was really just the shifting
of the earth. The setting is important here in creating an atmosphere of dread which each human
has experienced at one time in their life. If the terror had ensued at a time during the day instead
of the night, then it might have produced a more comical affect as opposed to the fright shared with
the audience. It pulls the reader into the story so that when the second part hits, the reader is
completely engaged in the author’s sardonic telling of a fairy tale.
This fairy tale in itself is ironic due to the fact hat the very first paragraph of the entire story is
dedicated to the author’s refusal to write a story for children. Another situation of irony is
presented in that the only thing relating the author’s tale to that of a children’s story is the setting.
A happy family in a “perfect” little suburb makes it seem like a story for children, but by the time the
story finds its end, readers are left completely shocked.
Irony adds to this final affect in that everything the parents do to protect heir home becomes
useless. The gate speaker is used by the boy for a walkie-talkie. The alarm is set off, but no one
cares. The high wall is mocked by the cat jumping over it. The ultimate destruction is obvious
when the boy is killed by the barbed wire. All these precaution, things the characters thought they
would die without, instead bring on unseen death.
This death, added to by the person vs. self conflict and sarcastic tone of the author, creates the
theme of the entire piece. This theme’s impact is even more great and shocking upon a second
reading of the story. The repetition of “YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED” stands to tell readers that this
story is in fact warning them that with each move they make they build their own prison and bring
on their own destruction.

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