Once Upon Time By Nadine Gordimer Essay, Research Paper

Once Upon a Social Issue Fairy tales have always been told to us as children;

whether to comfort or entertain us, they always seem to be a part of most

everyone?s childhood. When Nadine Gordimer was asked to write a children?s

story, she replied with a short story titled ?Once Upon A Time?. Although

the title is characteristic of a fairy tale, she leads the tale to an ending

that is anything other than ??happily ever after.? Gordimer distorts the

fairy tale by dealing with certain issues rather than giving the reader the

usual fairy tale characteristics. Three of the more significant issues Gordimer

likes to deal with in her story are racial discrimination and prejudice,

society?s insecurities, and the persuasive way fairy tales have with children.

Gordimer?s ?Once Upon A Time? has the feeling of insecurity right away. In

the first part of her story, Gordimer reminds us of our own insecurities. She

brings up a familiar situation in which one is awakened by a bump in the night

and cannot go back to sleep because of fear or their own insecurities. Gordimer

writes, ?I have no burglar bars, no gun under the pillow, but I have the same

fears as people who do take these precautions…? So, to better convey this

issue of society?s insecurities, she tells herself a bedtime story. In the

story, there is a family who is living ??happily ever after?, yet is seems

it is all that they can do to keep it that way. Rather than putting their

insecurities aside and getting on with their lives, they feel that they must put

their trust in security devices to protect their selves. For a short while, the

family has a sense of security by posting a plaque stating ??YOU HAVE BEEN

WARNED? over the silhouette of a prospective intruder. After a short time the

family?s psychological need for more security calls for a number of new

security devices in order to sustain the top level of security. It is in the

family?s pursuit of this ?security? that they virtually imprison

themselves. After the installation of burglar bars, Gordimer describes the view

?from every window and door in the house where they were living happily ever

after they now saw the trees and sky through bars.? One of the less obvious

issues lining ?Once Upon A Time? is racial discrimination. Gordimer first

suggestion that this suburb may be slightly racist is by stating that the plaque

on their gate warning possible intruders didn?t designate black or white,

therefore protesting too much the owner of the home not to be a racist. By

adding this statement, Gordimer lets there be evidence for a possible racism

problem in this suburb. Gordimer?s statement of riots outside of the city was

also supporting evidence toward racism in this place. The only black people that

were allowed in the suburbs were those considered to be trustworthy gardeners or

housemaids, and soon the trustworthy were not the only black people to be

loitering around the suburb. Gordimer writes of the community stating ?it was

a beautiful suburb, spoilt only by [the black people?s] presence.? With the

coming of these undesired guests, the family?s sense of security begins to

weaken yet again. In order to further suppress their insecure feelings, they

decide to raise the walls surrounding the property to a height of seven feet.

Later, after finding footprints that were not their own on the street side of

the wall, the family?s sense of security was further diminished. As a final

attempt at gaining complete security, the family pondered the addition of even

more protection for their outside wall. The family?s pursuit of a mental

security booster was finished when they lined the outside walls with razor wire

that formed an unconquerable barrier. Feeling quite safe with their new wire

defense, the mother finally feels secure enough to let her guard down and read

her little boy a fairy tale. The fairy tale, a story about a prince who dashes

through a terrible thicket of thorns to enter the palace and kiss the Sleeping

Beauty and bring her back to life. Children, having the imaginations that they

do, sometimes like to pretend to be a hero as in the fairy tale. So, the next

day, the little boy decides to also save the sleeping beauty by crawling through

the shinny new obstacle atop the outside wall. Once inside the young prince

began to charge through the insurmountable odds, and found them to be truly

insurmountable. The tunnel of stainless steel razor coils quickly entrapped the

young boy, tangling and terribly mangling him in his struggle to escape until

finally the boy cannot struggle any longer. There can be many interpretations of

the authors meaning and purpose for writing. Gordimer utilizes this opportunity

to address the issue of insecurity that society is overrun by today. She also

examines the unfairness and racial problems that many parts of South Africa

face. By the boy having been killed, it is clear that Gordimer wanted to show

how someone living with these issues, like the family, could actually weaken

themselves by submitting to their prejudices and insecurities. With all of this

said, I feel that this story is more than anything, a way for Gordimer to

express her thoughts and feelings on these topics while also sort of defying an

attempt by someone to have the audacity to tell her what she should write.

Gordimer, Nadine. ?Once Upon a Time.? Literature Harcourt Brace College

Publishers.