Theme Of Once Upon A Time By Nadine Gordimer

Irony is a tactic writers can use to create the unexpected for the readers. Nadine Gordimer’s fairy tale, “Once Upon a Time” is loaded with irony. Within the beginning Gordimer is already using irony to its full extent, saying how people tell her she ought to write children novels, and she replies “I don’t accept that I “ought” to write anything” (Gordimer 4); and then continues to tell us in the next paragraph that something woke her, and she was scared, “So I began to tell myself a story; a bed time story” (35) which is something a reader would tell most children. The story that she tells her self is it self-ironic. The story is about a family that lives in a neighborhood that is no longer safe so they do whatever it takes to keep their family safe. However, the irony in the story is seen when the parents puts up the barbed wire, trying to keep their property safe, and then their son tries to use his imagination and ends up being maimed by the wire that was supposed to protect them from danger. Through out the story the author uses irony to show the readers that the walls we build that we think keep us safe, are the ones that hold us prisoners in the end. This continues to show the reader that “once upon a time” and living in a fortress will not always have a fairytale ending.
The short story, “Once Upon a Time,” takes a rather unconventional twist on the characteristics and aspects of children’s fairytale stories. While reading the story, it seems as though the author is writing a strange, society-focused story. In the story, the members of a suburb have had some burglaries, so they begin to add more and more security measures out of the fear they will be next. However, many aspects of children’s fairytales break through. The ...

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...led from a emulating a children’s story. The author wanted nothing to do with writing a children’s story and said she ought to do nothing, implying the fact that it was dangerous. The irony in it all is that fairy tales are not safe they are dangerous.
The title in its self “Once upon a time” is ironic. The fact that this story is far from the traditional happy ending fairy tale, it leads the reader to believe that the choice for the title is just another skillful tactic of Nadine Gordimer. Through out the story Gordimer uses irony to play with the reader’s emotions and change the overall meaning of the phrase “Once upon a time”. From the start the reader knew it was not going to be a traditional fairy tale. Although, the end was not what the reader was expecting or hoping for, it was a lesson that the fear of the unknown will kill you before the unknown does.