Once Upon a Time Nadine Gordimer Reading
Howard is an avid short story reader who likes to help others find and understand stories.
Nadine Gordimer'southward curt story "In one case Upon a Time" was beginning published in 1989.
This article has a summary, and then looks at symbols, theme and some relevant questions to consider.
Summary of "Once Upon a Time"
The narrator has been asked to write a story for a children's anthology. She doesn't write that kind of story and doesn't feel obligated to.
Last night, she was awakened by a sound—a creaking, possibly an intruder. Her house isn't well secured. She thinks of recent crimes in the area. She lies still and listens intently.
It turns out there'due south no intruder. The creaking was from the weight of the house. It rests on a mine. When something comes loose in a channel or passage below, the house buckles a fleck.
She can't fall asleep again, so she tells herself a bedtime story.
A happy family unit—a hubby, wife and little boy—alive in a firm with a cat and dog. They alive well and accept a housemaid and an afoot gardener. They have the necessary precautions to protect their property. They can't insure themselves against riots, but the people who anarchism are another color and aren't immune in their suburb. Even though there are law to keep them away, the wife is yet afraid. They have electronically controlled gates installed with an intercom system to exist sure no one tin make it. Their son plays with the intercom.
There are burglaries in the neighborhood. A housemaid was put in a cupboard while thieves took everything. Their housemaid urges them to accept bars and an alarm installed. They do so.
The cat oft sets off the alarm. The same affair happens in many other houses. The alarms sound and then often that people stop paying attention. Thieves start using the noise to their advantage, using it as cover to suspension in and clear out the houses.
Unemployed people start hanging around the suburb, some of them looking for jobs. Others drink and beg and sleep in the street.
The wife wants to send out some food to them merely the housemaid objects and the husband agrees. There's too much gamble.
They realize someone could climb over the wall or the gates and get into the garden. The hubby'south female parent makes a Christmas nowadays of actress bricks to expand the wall. The boy gets a Infinite Man costume and a book of fairy tales.
Every calendar week they hear more than reports of break-ins. They notice the cat gets over their wall hands. When they walk the dog, they check out how the other homeowners have secured the tops of their walls. After making a comparing of their appearance and functionality, they settle on the nigh effective addition.
It's a coil of metallic full of jagged blades. They call the security firm. The next day a coiffure installs it.
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The wife hopes the cat won't be injure on it. The husband says cats are cautious. Information technology ends upward staying inside.
One evening, the wife reads a bedtime story to her son from his new book of fairy stories. The side by side day, he plays the Prince from the story, who braved a terrible thicket of thorns to accomplish Sleeping Beauty. He climbs into the new metal security coil. It hooks him immediately. He screams and struggles merely gets entangled worse. The itinerant gardener tries to free the boy but simply hurts himself.
The boy'due south mangled torso is cutting out of the curl. The parents, housemaid and gardener comport the torso into the firm.
Symbols of Apartheid
The bedtime story the writer tells herself is symbolic for the arrangement of racial segregation in South Africa that lasted over 40 years. Beginning, several things signal that the story isn't to be taken literally:
- The title, "In one case Upon a Time," is how fairy tales begin.
- The frame story establishes that the author was asked to come up up with a children'south story, and it's presented as a bedtime story.
- The setting, "In a house, in a suburb, in a city," is vague.
- None of the characters have names, suggesting they're representative rather than real individuals.
- The family seems perfect and is completely happy when the story starts.
- The husband'south mother is referred to every bit a "wise old witch."
There are many details that parallel apartheid:
- "[P]eople of another color were quartered" exterior the city and weren't allowed in the suburb except as workers.
- The family lives in a gated community, representing the separation between races. This separation is intensified past the numerous security measures, particularly the coiled razor wire.
- The people of some other color riot. There are police and soldiers to suppress them.
- At that place's loftier unemployment amongst the outsiders.
Theme: Fear of the "Other"
The family starts by taking reasonable precautions, such as fencing off the puddle, hiring people with references, getting the proper licenses, insuring their belongings, having a regular gate, and joining the Neighborhood Watch.
Later on this, their fear of the "people of another color" begins escalating. There'due south no insurance for riot harm, then they get an electronic gate with an intercom.
Reports of burglaries move them to bar the doors and windows and install an alarm system.
The loitering, unemployed people in the street motivate them to make the wall higher.
Further reports of offense atomic number 82 them to get the coiled razor wire put on the wall.
What is the purpose of the frame story?
The story the narrator makes upward could have been told without whatsoever preamble. The introductory story gives it some context that intensifies the meaning:
- The writer balks at the idea she "ought to write" a children'due south story. This implies her bedtime story won't be what the anthologist has in mind.
- She's awakened past a creaking sound that frightens her. She'due south worried information technology'southward an intruder, which is what the family unit in her bedtime story worries about.
- Her fright is fueled by isolated criminal acts in her area. The family's new security measures are fueled past every crime report they hear.
- Her house is congenital on "undermined basis" considering far underneath lies a gold mine full of "Chopi and Tsonga migrant miners". They might exist cached there at present. This establishes the racial and economic inequality where the story is set. In hindsight, the house represents S Africa, a "firm" built on a shaky foundation of injustice.
What's the significance of the boy'due south decease?
The male child dies from the final security measure out, the most effective deterrent the couple can observe, the "Dragon's Teeth" make bract-filled coil on the wall. The irony of a security feature designed to continue a criminal out killing a family member is obvious.
His expiry illustrates the effect of extreme fear on people. Information technology ends up figuratively killing them. They aren't "living" anymore; all they think near is the possible danger around them. At the least, it puts them in a prison of their own making.
This content is accurate and true to the best of the author's cognition and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.
Howard Allen (author) on September thirteen, 2020:
It is interesting, merely it's not the story if you lot're looking for something amusing or uplifting.
Ginn Navarre on September xiii, 2020:
Very interesting brusk story? Yet for me in today's crazy globe I prefer and continue to stick to short stories that brand me smiling an laugh.
Source: https://owlcation.com/humanities/Themes-Summary-Once-Upon-a-Time-Nadine-Gordimer
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