What is the theme of "Once upon a Time" by Nadine Gordimer?

It is long been held in many quarters, among social scientists, psychologists, and sociologists, that there's an intimate connection between fear and racism. Racism can take many different forms, but all of them seem to share a common source: fear of the "other," fear of people who don't look or act like us.

This close link between fear and racism is illustrated by Nadine Gordimer in her short story "Once Upon a Time." In the story, the focus is on a white couple in apartheid-era South Africa living in an upscale suburb from which the Black majority has been excluded.

Despite the relative affluence enjoyed by the people who live in this part of the world, there's been a crime wave in the area. The couple, along with their neighbors, are convinced that Black people are responsible, even though there's no evidence for this.

In their prejudice, we can see a combination of racism and fear. The white people who live in this suburb are frightened of Black people, seeing them as a threat to their personal security and private property. And this fear is accompanied by racist attitudes towards Black South Africans.

Those who hold such attitudes think that identifying Black people as their enemies will somehow make them safer. But in actual fact, it only serves to make them more frightened and insecure.

What is the theme of "Once upon a Time" by Nadine Gordimer?

A theme is a universal truth about life or mankind that a work of art seeks to convey. A literary work can have many themes. Three themes in Nadine Gordimer's short story are explained below.

1. Living in fear creates a prison of one's own making. In the story frame and in the bedtime story the narrator tells herself, the characters allow fear to dictate how they act. The narrator, lying in bed, is "a victim already." She feels trapped in her room, unable to rest or sleep but also unable to rise up and put her fears to rest. The family, attempting to protect themselves from rioters, murders, and burglars, enclose themselves behind walls, bars, and finally an ugly Auschwitz-like coil. What they do to their property symbolizes what they are doing to their souls and spirits—cutting themselves off and stunting their lives because of their fears.

2. Avoiding and withdrawing from what we fear, especially if it is fear of "the other," cannot solve the problem. The more effort the family makes to escape from the racial/ ethnic group they distrust, the more the problems between their community and the other community grows. The wife's instinct to reach out to the other group with compassion is quickly squelched, yet that is the only glimmer of possibly bringing an end to the escalating fear and isolation the family feels.

3. To live "happily ever after" requires more than material possessions. Looking for root causes of the tragedies that occur in the story, we must follow the money, and we find that love of money is the root of this evil. The family has arrived at their "house in a suburb" where they "had a car and a caravan trailer for holidays, and a swimming-pool." This good life that they have achieved requires protection. They fear losing it, so they insure it and participate in Neighborhood Watch. They can't insure against riot, though, so they go to drastic measures to make sure their property can't be taken from them. In the family's obsessive desire to protect their material wealth, their relationships suffer. The mother-in-law is a "witch," and they are unable to show basic human kindness to outsiders that would enrich their own souls and spirits. Ultimately, they lose their most precious "possession," their son, because of their fixation on protecting their material goods.

These strong themes of fear, prejudice, and materialism make "Once upon a Time" a powerful short story.

How do story elements develop the theme in Once Upon a Time by Nadine Gordimer?

Gordimer uses a frame story and a fairy tale motif to make the point that fairy-tale solutions to real problems don't work.

In the frame story, the narrator hears a noise and fears, not without reason, that someone has entered her house with bad intentions. She notes that though she doesn't have bars on her windows or a gun, as many of her neighbors do, she still has fears. As she states:

A woman was murdered (how do they put it) in broad daylight in a house two blocks away, last year, and the fierce dogs who guarded an old widower and his collection of antique clocks were strangled before he was knifed by a casual laborer he had dismissed without pay.

The narrator is well aware that her society is suffering from unrest as the oppressed black people become more upset at their situation and start to fight back. She feels the temptation to try to feel safe by barricading herself in.

To deal with her fears and to illustrate that barricades are not the answer, the perspective moves from a first-person narrative about the woman's own life to a third-person fairytale. In this story, a family that consists of a couple and their young son tries to ensure their security by adding razor wire to a high wall around their house. However their son, responding to a fairy tale he hears within this fairy tale, tries to climb the wall and gets tangled in the razor wire.

By using the fairy tale genre, Gordimer shows it is a fairy tale—a fantastic way of thinking—to believe one can make oneself safe by building walls. Reality has a way of intruding when we live unrealistically and don't deal with societal problems in a constructive way. Walls, like fairy tales, are a escape from facing reality.

How do story elements develop the theme in Once Upon a Time by Nadine Gordimer?

The narrator makes frequent references, called allusions, to fairy tale elements and language.

When the maid begs the young married couple to get an alarm system for their home, they do so, and they put up bars on every window and every door where "they were living happily ever after"; this exact phrase is actually repeated four times within this very short story.

Further, the husband's mother is referred to as the "wise old witch" who pays for the wall to be built higher and buys the boy a "book of fairy tales" for Christmas; she is reference as an "old witch" three times.

The most secure alarm systems are installed by a company called "Dragon's Teeth," and dragons are certainly popular opponents in fairy tales.

The little boy pretends to be the "Prince who braves the terrible thicket of thorns to enter the palace and kiss the Sleeping Beauty back to life." He gets up to the top of the wall and becomes entangled within the terrible barbed wire the family has had installed for their own protection.

These fairy tale allusions help to develop the theme that real life is not like a fairy tale. When we ignore the real-world's problems and inequalities, they do not actually go away, and when we try to protect or insulate ourselves from these problems rather than dealing with them head-on, we make prisoners of ourselves.

How do story elements develop the theme in Once Upon a Time by Nadine Gordimer?

Short stories rely on a good structure to make them memorable because otherwise the reader will have finished the story without benefiting from all the elements present in any good story. Short stories do not have time to introduce the reader to the writer's style and they rely on a good structure to get the message across and ensure that the larger theme is shared. Story elements include various features, the most crucial of which are the characters, the setting, the plot, the conflict and the resolution. 

In Nadine Gordimer's Once Upon A Time, Gordimer explores the effects of the unknown on a person's outlook. Fear of the unknown becomes the driving force for this family who should be living "happily ever after," except that their fears prevent them from ever relaxing. The characters contribute towards the theme because Gordimer stresses the point that they have normal aspirations and could reflect any family anywhere, making the theme all that more relevant.

The setting may be a Johannesburg street in the 1980s, which is a unique setting, but because of the way Gordimer describes it, it can be recognized universally as people are paranoid and untrusting and some are set in their ways. This setting reinforces that fact that fear and mistrust are often inherent in human nature. Unless people take steps to open their hearts and recognize the needs and desires of others who are different from them, they will never overcome their fears. Note how, in this setting, everything is the same in terms of having high walls and barbed wire, etc. and everyone wants to be the same and, rather than freeing themselves from that, they perpetuate it and become a part of it. Hence, the setting develops the theme of fear of the unknown as people would rather endure the unpleasant side of living in this neighborhood rather than actively trying to do anything about what is causing the irrational fear. Taking precautions against burglaries and so on is not unwise but taking it to extremes is what Gordimer is warning her readers about. 

The conflict in this story develops the theme because it is the reason why the family find it necessary to keep intensifying security. How can they ever be safe when they hear so many stories and every precaution they take is never enough? Even the cat can effortlessly scale the boundary wall so how will it deter a would-be armed robber? 

The plot of any story has its own elements as it gathers momentum towards a climax after which the outcomes become apparent. In Gordimer's story, the rising action is evident in all the steps the family take towards ensuring its safety. The climax is the boy's tangle in the barbed wire and the outcomes are left to the reader's imagination as the "bleeding mass of the little boy" is freed from the wire and carried into the house. The use of the word "it" to describe him suggests a sinister end to this story. The resolution then confirms the family's fear of the unknown. However, it is hardly the "unknown" that they were expecting.   

What are the two lessons we learn from the story "Once Upon A Time" by Nadine Gordimer?

In "Once Upon A Time" by Nadine Gordimer, Gordimer intends for the reader to learn that danger has many guises and is likely to be misunderstood, and, in this instance, misinterpreted unless families like the one in the "bedtime story" reflect on their own shortcomings and irrational fears rather than only recognizing the faults of others.  Even though "the property owner was not racist," the actions of the parents reveal their fear of "people of another color" and their own enforced isolation represents a danger in itself. 

Life is full of potential dangers and it is better to learn to manage them—such as the narrator does when she hears her floorboards creaking and wonders if there is an intruder—rather than to lay blame. The narrator acknowledges her own fears when she admits that although she has "no gun under the pillow ... I have the same fears as people who do take these precautions" and she wants the reader to learn to be realistic because chasing an ideal, an undefined "happily ever after" indicates that real happiness eludes families like the one in the story. The unknown element of fear, which prevents their image of perfection from ever being reached, creates the wrong impression and this family seek happiness in all the wrong places, mainly in securing their material needs. The reader will hopefully learn from this scenario.      

What symbols are present in Nadine Gordimer's "Once upon a Time"?

In order to fully appreciate the symbolism in "Once Upon a Time," it is important to place this work in its historical context. Nadine Gordimer grew up in South Africa during the country's apartheid era. The daughter of Jewish immigrants, Gordimer was strongly opposed to the racism around her and made this the focus of much of her writing.

In "Once Upon a Time," Gordimer rejects the notion of an idyllic bedtime story and instead tells a story of her own experience. This story is the story of South Africa, where the lines of racism were drawn and white supremacy was celebrated.

The phrase "happily ever after" is repeated numerous times throughout the story, symbolizing the superficial sense of happiness that the family constructs their lives around. Of course, the phrase is juxtaposed with other images, such as windows that are eventually covered with bars, and later with the coils that are installed around the family's home. This repetitive and ironic symbolism demonstrates the façade of happiness which the couple constructs; they are determined to maintain their lifestyle even if they inflict death on people who dare to cross the lines they create.

The coil of wire which the couple places around their home symbolizes apartheid itself. The wire is described in vividly destructive terms:

It consisted of a continuous coil of stiff and shining metal serrated into jagged blades, so that there would be no way of climbing over it and no way through its tunnel without getting entangled in its fangs. There would be no way out, only a struggle getting bloodier and bloodier, a deeper and sharper hooking and tearing of flesh.

Like the wire, apartheid functions to destroy lives, tearing people and bodies apart with its hooks and snares. Apartheid is violent and destructive, and it is dangerous on both sides of the "fence." While the couple believe themselves safely hidden away on the "proper" side of the fence, they fail to realize that their son is at risk because of the fence they have constructed.

The boy is symbolic of innocence. He enjoys the world around him, playing games with the increasingly deadly fortifications. He has no sense of the danger he is supposed to feel. Instead, he runs ahead of his parents on their walks and enjoys creative games with his friends. The boy is full of imagination and energy, and he doesn't exist in the same world of fear which dominates his parents' efforts.

At Christmas, the boy is given a book of fairy tales. This book is symbolic of the couple's disillusionment with the world around them. They are living a fairy tale every day, determined to believe that they can both be a part of and separate from the suffering around them. They refuse to leave the community where they have to first install a gate, and then bars, and then, later, a deadly wire to keep out people whom they have deemed unworthy. They also believe that they can live "happily ever after" in the midst of constant fear and surveillance. The book of fairy tales is the young son's impetus for choosing to scale his parents' deadly divide, and he dies because of those efforts.

What symbols are present in Nadine Gordimer's "Once upon a Time"?

Gordimer’s story is a kind of children’s story gone wrong. In that sense, we can understand much of what happens in symbolic terms:

The suburb the family lives in is symbolic of a kind of fairy kingdom; the story begins where most fairy tales end, with living happily ever after, but in this case, the gradual transformation of the suburb into a kind of concentration camp is symbolic of a kind of reverse fairy tale logic.

The boy is symbolic of the protagonist of a fairy tale; the story ends with his imagining himself as the Prince from Sleeping Beauty, but far from rescuing the princess, he instead is caught in the razor wire that tops the garden wall. It’s ironic that the thing that is supposed to protect their possessions (the wire) ultimately harms their most prized possession (the boy) through a fantasy about escape.

The cat is symbolic of a kind of existence free from the race and economic inequities that cause the adults to live in fear. Unlike the little boy, the cat is smart enough to stay away from the razor wire.

The mother in law, or the “wise old witch” who constantly recommends ever greater security precautions, is a figure of the “wicked stepmother” character from fairy tales, in that she seems sympathetic but her advice only serves to make things worse. To the extent that she advocates for “common sense” precautions against robbers, she also comes to represent racism and apartheid.

Gordimer’s story as a whole is symbolic of a kind of literary production which she rejects at the very start of her text, when she rejects the notion that every writer “ought” to write at least one children’s story. The story she does write is a kind of negation of the children’s story genre; in this fairy tale, reality intrudes, and the assumption is that the characters will live unhappily ever after as a result.

What symbols are present in Nadine Gordimer's "Once upon a Time"?

Nadine Gordimer's short story is brimming with symbolism. Here are some of the symbols and what they stand for.

The gold mine: In the frame story, the gold mine under the narrator's home that causes her house to shift and creak represents the stirrings of the "underclass" in the exploitative social system of apartheid. The white elitist culture is about to come crashing down due to the "uneasy strain" on South Africa's social fabric.

The wise old witch: The mother-in-law can stand for the political regime that promotes apartheid or for any influence that fosters racial or ethnic prejudice.

The walls, bars, and Dragon's Teeth: These barriers symbolize how fear produces isolation that creates a prison for the one who fears. The family first encloses themselves in a wall, then imprisons themselves behind bars, and finally confines themselves to a concentration camp. 

The cat: The cat represents the creeping fear of the "other" that cannot be resolved. The cat manages to get over the wall and through the bars. At the end of the story, the cat represents foresight: It knows to look before it leaps, which is more than the humans know. The parents have not anticipated how their fear and prejudice will destroy the future. 

The burglar alarms: These are most known for going off without good reason, showing that the fear the family has of "people of another color" is nothing but a "false alarm."

The son: The little boy represents the future, which the parents sacrifice to their fear. He also represents what is truly valuable as opposed to the material goods the parents try to insure from loss. They have become so focused on protecting their wealth and position in society that they neglect what is most important in life: connection to others, compassion, and love.

These are some of the symbols Gordimer weaves into her thought-provoking short story.

What is the significance of Nadine Gordimer's title "Once Upon a Time"?

By calling the story "Once Upon A Time," Gordimer sets certain expectations for the reader. Specifically, the reader expects to be presented with a classic fairy tale story in which good conquers evil. What the reader finds, however, is that although this story has some characteristics of a fairy tale, Gordimer has no intention of letting good conquer evil, as we see through the story's tragic ending. Therefore, she turns the notion of a fairy tale on its head.

The title also has significance in terms of Gordimer's refusal to write a children's story. Remember that in the first paragraph she says that she was asked to contribute to an anthology of children's stories. In addition, one author said that she ought to write at least one story for children. However, Gordimer has no intention of fulfilling this request. By titling her story in this way, in which she sets an expectation for a children's fairy tale story, she makes a protest against this expectation. Gordimer is, therefore, exercising her artistic freedom.

As such, the title acts as a protest. It sends a clear message that she will write what she wants to write, not what society tells her to write.

What is the significance of Nadine Gordimer's title "Once Upon a Time"?

The phrase “once upon a time” is often used to signify that the story will be a fairy tale, the most important implication of which is that the story will end “happily ever after.” In this case, Gordimer immediately indicates that she plans to subvert the traditional fairy tale by beginning her bedtime story with the sentence:

“In a house, in a suburb, in a city, there were a man and his wife who loved each other very much and were living happily ever after.”

The man and his wife have already reached the pinnacle of the fairy tale, the happy ending: where else to go but down?

The story also utilizes traditional fairy tale elements. The husband’s mother is referred to as a “wise old witch,” the alarms are referred to as electronic harpies, and the security company’s name is Dragon’s Teeth.

In contrast to the inverted structure of the story itself, the son reads about Sleeping Beauty—a seemingly innocuous story that ultimately leads to his death, when he pretends to be a prince and climbs through the razor coil thorns. The juxtaposition of Sleeping Beauty’s happy ending with Gordimer’s tragic one drives home the contrast.

What is the significance of Nadine Gordimer's title "Once Upon a Time"?

The opening provides a frame story that explains why the narrator wrote the fairy story that follows. She states that she has been approached about authoring a children's story but has so far resisted. However, as she is lying in bed one night, she believes she hears an intruder. She thinks about people who have been murdered recently, such as an old widower who was knifed. Although she comes to realize that her home has not been invaded, the fear of burglary or personal harm keeps her from sleeping. She recognizes from her own reactions how real the fear of intruders is, and this leads to her write the fairy tale that follows.

In this story, a family experiences fears similar to her own. In order to feel safe, they therefore decide to increase the obstacles to gaining entry to their home. They have razor wire added to the top of the high wall surrounding their house. However, rather than keeping them safe, the razor wire harms them: their young son gets tangled up in it.

The narrator knows how potent the fears are of being harmed by outsiders. She uses the story to work through her own fears and discovers that putting up more walls between herself and others will not really make her safer.

What is the significance of Nadine Gordimer's title "Once Upon a Time"?

In “Once Upon a Time” by Nadine Gordimer is about, we first need to understand why Gordimer wrote this story. At the beginning of the story, she explains that she was asked to write a children’s story but rejected the idea based on arguments pertaining to artistic freedom. However, she composes a “bedtime story” after a frightening experience in which she thinks her home has been invaded by burglars.

The story she tells is of a family (a couple and their child) living a way of life that would be well-understood by any South African: a life lived in fear of becoming the victim of a crime. The story is set in the Apartheid era, and “people of another color” are not allowed into white neighborhoods unless they have a permit. The wife in the story is particularly affected by the threat of crime and violence. As a result, her husband has the security wall and electronic gates that are so endemic to life in South Africa installed.

Despite the introduction of these measures, a crime wave ensues in the neighborhood, which leads to servants being dismissed and fears mounting. The family in Gordimer’s short story responds by making their wall higher and adding sharp pieces of metal on a wire to the top of their wall to make it more difficult for intruders to scale.

Tragedy strikes when the couple’s young son attempts to climb the wall and is repeatedly stabbed by the pieces of metal. There is irony in the story’s ending, both in the sense that the boy is torn and injured by something meant to protect the family and that it is the family’s Black gardener who attempts to rescue the mangled body of their son.

What is the significance of Nadine Gordimer's title "Once Upon a Time"?

The story consists of two parts: an introductory frame story and a "bedtime story" the narrator tells herself.

In the frame story, the narrator wakes up in the middle of the night because she hears a creaking sound. She thinks it may be the footsteps of an intruder and is gripped by fear, but she realizes it was just her house settling on the "undermined ground." She can't get back to sleep, so she tells herself a bedtime story.

The bedtime story is a parody of a fairy tale. The story begins with "happily ever after" and gets worse and worse. The family lives in a rich white suburb. To protect their possessions from "riot," which cannot be insured against, they take increasingly severe actions. They fear that the crimes committed by "people of another color" will affect their neighborhood. They install electronically controlled gates, burglar alarms, bars on their windows, a tall wall, and finally a device called "Dragon's Teeth," which is a series of "razor-bladed coils" that sits atop their wall. At one point, the unemployed people of color infiltrate the neighborhood, and the wife wants to give them food, but the "trusted housemaid" and her husband warn against reaching out to them.

The couple's little boy receives a book of fairy tales from his grandmother for Christmas. The "Dragon's Teeth" remind him of the brambles that the prince in "Sleeping Beauty" conquers, and he seeks out to do the same thing. He gets caught in the coils and dies before the gardener can release him from "its tangle." 

The fairy tale is a representation of life under apartheid in South Africa, but it can extend to any situation in which fear and prejudice blind people to their obligations to reach out and show compassion to others, especially the less fortunate, and to value relationships more than material wealth and social standing.

How does Nadine Gordimer use metaphor to develop the main theme in Once Upon a Time?

Once Upon A Time by Nadine Gordimer brings the fear of the unknown (the main theme) into the lives of her readers and into their dreams while the tragedy of a family's efforts to protect itself unfolds. This fear causes the family to take extraordinary measures and to intensify its security to the point where the family is no longer aware of what it is that threatens it so much or what it needs protection from. By using various comparisons, Gordimer is able to create images for the reader which reinforce the theme.

To show her own vulnerability and susceptibility to unknown forces even without any irrational fear, Gordimer uses simile when she compares her windows which have no burglar-proofing to a thin layer of frost and (a second simile) even as having the potential to shatter as she says her own "windowpanes are thin as rime, could shatter like a wineglass." Gordimer justifies the fear by telling the reader about a recent murder in her neighborhood. The difference for the narrator though is that she can explain her fear and then manage it; something the family cannot do. 

The family which is living "happily ever after" is unable to enjoy its home because it seems that there is always another threat.  It is ironic that the family does not choose the "twelve-inch spikes" as the next measure of protection but rather an even deadlier barbed wire which the narrator compares to some unnamed creature with "fangs." This comparison is a metaphor and is significant because it is the barbed wire which attracts the little boy and sparks his imagination and it is the same barbed wire which becomes almost animal-like and which causes the tragedy. Gordimer continues to use metaphor when describing the barbed wire as a "cornice of razor thorns" which surrounds the house and which creates a striking visual image for the reader. For the little boy, the wire is "a shining coiled tunnel" (metaphor) and is irresistible. This develops the theme significantly as the unknown fear is also unseen but unfortunately, this family is unable to see beyond their own limited perspective. This makes the wall symbolic and reveals the contradiction. The wall has the capacity to keep undesirable elements out but it also masks the real problem. 

Soon after the little boy becomes nothing more than a "bleeding mass" (metaphor) and the parents' greatest fear is realized. However, it is not anything they could have planned for or anticipated. Had they spent more time enjoying their little boy rather than concentrating on their paranoia, perhaps the tragedy could have been avoided. 

What is the important theme of Nadine Gordimer's short story "Once Upon A Time"?

The theme of this short story is that our fears of other people, especially people who seem different from us, can destroy us. More specifically, Gordimer, writing in 1989, shortly before apartheid's collapse in South Africa, uses her story to attack apartheid as a sick system that hurts everyone involved. She illustrates in her tale that fear of the other not only harms the groups that are feared; it also can destroy the people who react out of excessive fear.

In this story, a family living in a privileged, all white enclave in South Africa become increasing frightened by stories of blacks robbing neighborhood homes:

But every week there were more reports of intrusion: in broad daylight and the dead of night, in the early hours of the morning, and even in the lovely summer twilight ...

When the family sees their cat leap to the top of the tall wall that they have constructed to stay safe, they decide the only way to be truly secure is to top the wall with shards of broken glass and razor wire. 

One night, the mother reads her son a fairytale about a prince who scales a high castle wall. The next day, wanting to be like the prince, the boy tries to scale the wall surrounding his house. He gets caught on the broken glass and razor wire and dies. 

Gordimer, a communist dedicated to breaking down racial barriers in her homeland, liked to quote philosopher Antonio Gramsci:

The old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum there arises a great diversity of morbid symptoms.

This story shows that one of the chief qualities of these "morbid systems," excessive fear, is highly destructive. It doesn't protect families; it destroys them. This family tried to build a high-walled fairytale castle where they could retreat and be safe. However, they were living in the actual world, where reality intrudes and disrupts our fantasies.  They would have been better off to have been less fearful and more open to the blacks.

What is the important theme of Nadine Gordimer's short story "Once Upon A Time"?

The most important theme in Nadine Gordimer's "Once Upon a Time" is Fear of "the other."

This fear can be perceived or real, and the attainment of the perfect and secure life can lead to one's own destruction.

The family's perceived fear of Black people originates from rumors and news reports which is then confirmed through reports of home invasions in their neighborhood.

When each step in their plan does not meet their need for the perfect, secure life, they take more drastic measures.

Thus, Fear of "the Other" led the family to join a neighborhood watch group, install a home security system, limiting the hours of work and location of their Black servants, and, finally, to the installation of barbed wire fencing that led to the Death of their son as he climbed it after learning about the heroic deeds of the Prince in Sleeping Beauty.

The family's wealthy status and privilege may have served as obstacles to acceptance of their neighbors.

The implication is that fear of the unknown and its associated changes seems so threatening that people will go to extremes to preserve the status quo.

What does Once Upon a Time by Nadine Gordimer reveal about life in South Africa?

Nadine Gordimer is a South African writer who characteristically uses the theme of a fear of the unknown and, for South Africans, a fear of the future after Apartheid in her stories.

In Once Upon A Time, Gordimer involves herself in the content of the story as she apparently tells herself a story in an attempt to fall asleep. She has been woken by a strange noise - which raises fear in even the most street-wise South African and all sorts of possibilities run through her head until she is able to rationalize and realize that her fear is unfounded.

The Apartheid years in South Africa, unfortunately brought with them mistrust and a need to stereotype everyone in an effort to supposedly protect oneself. Gordimer shows in Once Upon A Time that expectations are often a driving force in creating situations and misconceptions which can have the most devastating results. The accompanying neuroses are passed on through the generations.

All South Africans have the same desires; to keep their families safe, educate their children, have a successful career, live in  friendly, supportive communities and enjoy their lives. This is, infact, the yearning of most people worldwide. For some South Africans, primarily "white" South Africans, the mistrust was raised to a level far beyond any rational thinking as "people of another color" threatened their existence.

In the twenty first century, people are encouraged to embrace change but for those who still feel vulnerable, this is more of a challenge that we can even contemplate. In Johannesburg, you will  not find a house that opens directly onto the street. There will be a wall; there will be spikes; there will be sensors and alarms and don't forget the vicious dogs! There will be remote controlled gates and subscriptions to security firms with armed guards and so on. It must be noted that this is a generalized statement and not entirely the case. Neighbors will still wave to one another and children will play outside on bikes but home owners are acutely aware of strangers, suspicious vehicles, etc.

Nadine Gordimer's descriptions of the raising of the walls, the spikes, the increasing levels of security do indicate how isolated families can become in an environment like that. How will South Africans ever learn to respect each other when they live this way. There can be no overlapping of cultures, no understanding of each other if there is no attempt to expose oneself to others.

The tragedy of the son who died from his injuries as he tried to climb the wall thinking he was simulating the fairy story, is something for every South African to consider. The "happily ever after" required of every fairy story lies in the recognition of what true happiness is or true perfection is and not a scared, limited and narrow view which recommends isolation and separation to save oneself. For some South Africans, it brings the saying "safety first" to a whole new level. Once Upon a Time exposes the paranoia that has festered in the minds of SOME South Africans. The recent Oscar Pistorius tragedy is just one example of how South Africans can overreact to situations where they perceive their lives to be in danger.

Even Rapunzel broke our from her tower, leapt into the unknown and never looked back. Her "happily ever after" was in embracing the future and searching for happiness.  

What are the main themes in the short story, "Once Upon A Time" by Nadine Gordimer?

The themes in the story are informed by irony and are firstly, the folly of irrational fear and secondly, the dangers inherent in protectionism and exclusion.

In the introductory section, the speaker is overwhelmed by her fear of, what she believes, are criminal elements attempting to invade her house. She hears a variety of sounds and wrongly assumes that these are caused by those who mean her harm. She is anxious and filled with trepidation and becomes a victim of her own fear.

I was staring at the door, making it out in my mind rather than seeing it, in the dark. I lay quite still a victim already the arrhythmia of my heart was fleeing, knocking this way and that against its body-cage. How finely tuned the senses are, just out of rest, sleep! I could never listen intently as that in the distractions of the day, I was reading every faintest sound, identifying and classifying its possible threat.

She imagines all kinds of horrors but eventually realizes that her fear is unfounded, for there is a simple, rational explanation for the noises she hears - it is but a geological shift that has brought about a slight movement in her old house, causing the sounds.

The speaker is, however, so unnerved by the experience that she finds it difficult to sleep and tells herself a story, with an ironically discomforting theme, far removed from a normal bedtime story, to fall asleep.

The family in the main story, commit to all manners of protection to ensure their safety and thus further isolate themselves from the world outside. They seek to create a perfect sanctuary.

Next day a gang of workmen came and stretched the razor-bladed coils all round the walls of the house where the husband and wife and little boy and pet dog and cat were living happily ever after.

In their minds, the danger is real. What they do not, however, realize is that by seeking further isolation, they are making themselves even more vulnerable. They create greater danger to themselves and those they love. The point is proven, ironically, when they lose their most precious gift in a horrific accident - the direct consequence of their paranoid desire to be safe and secure.

One could argue that the characters, in both instances, were driven by rumor and anecdotal evidence and that their fears were, therefore, reasonable. The point in the end, though, is that their already existent paranoia was enhanced by the stories that they heard for none of them had, indeed, any evidence or had experienced on a personal level, any of the perceived dangers. Their fears and their actions in the final analysis, were based on assumptions. 

What are the main themes in the short story, "Once Upon A Time" by Nadine Gordimer?

I sense that there are two dominant themes that arise from Gordimer's work.  The first would be the fear of "the other."  The family's drive to protect themselves and essentially shield themselves from the outside world represents an inherent fear of that which is unknown.  This fear is the driving force behind inwardly drawn communities and also represents a large and underlying rationale of apartheid in Gordimer's own native South Africa.  The attitudes of the family help to develop this theme of a fear of that which is unknown or misunderstood.  The tragic condition of the family at the end, resulting the death of their child, is a result of this fear.  Another theme in the work is the idea of the dualistic and reciprocal nature of creation and destruction.  This holds the idea that each act of creation is an inevitable step towards destruction.  The family seeks to create a "perfect" solution to their fear of the outside world.  In barricading themselves off, they feel they have "the answer."  However, with each advancing step in this vein, they actually move a step closer to destruction and terror, as they move farther away from rationality and understanding and closer to a domain where destruction is the only logical end.

What theme does Gordimer communicate through the ending of "Once Upon a Time"?

At the end of Gordimer's fairy tale, the mother reads her little boy the story of Sleeping Beauty. The next day, the little boy pretends he is the prince in the story and that he is cutting his way through a thicket of thorns. He does this by setting a ladder next to the wall of his house and climbing up. He crawls into the "thicket" of razor wire and gets caught in it and torn up.

The theme communicated by this ending is that there is no real safety in building walls to keep the dangerous "other" out. Ironically, the wall the family fortifies with razor wire to keep themselves safe becomes a source of profound danger to them: the weapon the family uses against others is turned against one of their own.

On a deeper level, living in a fantasyland makes the family less safe. The family endangers themselves by living in a false reality as if it is true. A company with the fantasy name Dragon's Teeth puts up the razor wire, and the mother reads fairy stories to her son. They tell themselves the fairy story that they can be safe in their unjust society simply by building a wall.

In the end, Gordimer is saying that people can't solve social problems merely by waving a wand of wishful thinking and retreating into their fortresses.

What's the dominant cultural theme in Nadine Gordimer's "Once Upon a Time"?

I think that the most culturally relevant theme to come out of Gordimer's short story has to be the fear of "the other."  The strength of this story is that its context is apartheid South Africa, a system that was predicated upon containment of "the other."  White South Africa lived in the Apartheid configuration because it restricted the movement and opportunities of Black South Africans.  This helped to establish the idea of "the other" being kept at bay.  The establishment of gated communities, White flight from the urban centers, the development of suburbs and the basic idea that all that is bad and wrong with the world can be contained to a particular area or group of people is brought out in the story.  The family's desire to protect their interests is done so in a manner that lets fear of "the other" run wild.  The family is not overtly racist (as it points out in the story with the sign of "trespassers beware"), but does operate out of a position of fear and the inability to appropriate "the other" into their world is what causes them to be more inwardly drawn, leading to the death of their child and the valley of despair.  Impossible to divorce from the South African context, Gordimer might be suggesting that the fear of "the other" in South African politics and social organization can only result in more despair and pain, as opposed to anything redemptive or productive.

What is the central idea of Once Upon a Time by Nadine Gordimer?

In explaining the central idea in Nadine Gordimer's Once Upon A Time, the reader must consider which idea encompasses all the thoughts and beliefs which are prevalent in the story. In arriving at a main idea for this short story, and in explaining it in one word, the reader may ponder the plot, the sub-plots and the various opinions which are expressed and consider all of them within a framework which is centered on the overall picture (or the bigger picture). The central idea will be a universal truth rather than anything specific to South Africa. The reader should ask himself or herself what the lasting impression is having read this story and then apply that to any situation in coming to the central idea.

The story basically covers:

1. The expectations of others who want writers (such as the narrator) to conform;

2. The very real danger from criminal elements on the streets of South Africa and how perception is very different from reality;

3.The expectation of violence in South Africa during Apartheid and the family's obsessive need to protect itself from the threat that cannot actually be identified;  

4. The fear of the unknown and the misguided personification of that fear as it becomes "the unemployed...the loafers and the tsotsis (hooligans)" or perhaps "the people of another color." The family is driven to constantly upgrade its safety features due only to its own insecurities.  

The reader should now consider what he or she comes away with from this story and put all this together into a one word argument which has global significance. Some words which help the reader to find the best option may include tragedy, misunderstanding, miscommunication, confusion, oppression, insecurities, poor judgment and bad choices. A person has the capacity to trust others but it is who he or she puts his trust in that makes all the difference. 

My one word would be blame or accountability because there is potential for good and bad and this family now has a choice to move forward and make a difference or lay the blame for its misfortune squarely on the shoulders of others rather than taking ownership and making themselves accountable and responsible for change.  

Does Nadine Gordimer's "Once Upon a Time" combine bleak realities with fairy tale elements?

I think that one can look at the style of Gordimer's writing to see how fairy tale elements can be integrated into a very sad tale of modernist failure.  There is complexity revealed in the fairy tale notion of composition.  Even in the basic idea of Gordimer writing a fairy tale, she explores complexity and divergence in making the argument that the artist should never be told what to write or what to compose.  The complexity is that despite her assertions, she feels the need to write the fairy tale as a response to her own fears and panic.  Notice here that the fairy tale is motivated out of a desire to placate doubt and confusion.  The resultant tale is actually one that causes more doubt and fright, completely inverting the idea that the fairy tale is something that is meant to comfort.  Gordimer's style of her fairy tale creates the family as an almost mythically regal family with the father, mother, and child being king, queen, and prince. The protection of their home and their life is the kingdom.  The ending where the boy tries to climb over the barricade (inspired by a fairy tale) is one where the gallant prince tries to cross over challenging physical obstacles and barriers.  The subtleties that Gordimer brings out in her fairy tale style do not take away from the basic idea that the story is a modernist fable about a family trying to appropriate the world in accordance to its own subjectivity and actually causing more destruction and pain in the process.  The fact that such a complex theme is brought out through fairy tale form is only a testament to Gordimer's innovative style and her sheer brilliance in understanding intricate concepts within supposedly simple presentation.

How do Nadine Gordimer's life experiences relate to the theme of "Once Upon a Time"?

Unfortunately, your question had to be edited as it actually contained more than one question. Please do not ask multiple questions. I will respond to how theme is influenced by biographical details by refering to "Once Upon a Time" by Nadine Gordimer.

Quite clearly, if we look at the story, one of the major themes is that of fear and how it can dominate our lives. As shown by the frenzied efforts of the parents to gain the best in security for their home and the ever higher walls that divide them from others, fear is the dominant theme. Of course, tragically and shockingly, the attempt of the family to protect themselves is ironically turned against them as the latest measure, the famed Dragon's Teeth fence, is turned against them as their son becomes caught in it. We are told that the efforts of the parents to protect themselves result in them having to hack out "the bleeding mass of the little boy." Gordimer thus strongly suggests that when fear is allowed to rule our lives it is our own lives that are stunted and impacted.

It is important to be aware of the social background of this excellent, shocking story. Until the 1990s, apartheid ruled in South Africa, which was the legal separation of races. Nonwhites, as a result of this policy, experienced sanctioned racism and discrimination, and were forced to live away from whites that bordered white cities. This of course resulted in massive social problems, especially crime, as blacks robbed their white fellow citizens.

I hope this helps to answer your question. You could successfully compare this story to "The Rocking-Horse Winner," looking at the way that in that story greed is the emotion that rules the mother, only to end in tragedy. In both stories, whether through fear or greed, the son dies as a result of the parents' obsession.