Once Upon A Time

Last week, I was lucky enough to read Nadine Gordimer's story "Once upon a Time", which is hardly the fairytale you would expect it to be. The story is written in the mindset of fear, and highlights how fear can alter a persons justification for the actions they take to feel safe again. The story is very easy to understand, but the background events are a little more challenging to uncover. The story is based in the 1990s when whites had superiority over the non-whites, and roughly at the same time Nelson Mandala rose to power. The main literary element witnessed throughout the read is irony. The story is based on a family, one which lives "happily ever after", and how they slowly begin to imprison themselves in their own home; constantly overlooking their own happiness for the unnecessary desire of the safety of their family. While reading the story, I tried to visualize myself as a member of the family, predict the outcome of all these safety measures taken by the family and identify all the discriminative actions the family took, whether they knew it or not.