Once Upon A Time Analysis

Once upon a time’ a short story by Nadine Gordimer transports the reader through the narration of an interpretation of Apartheid in South Africa. The author used the story of a white family whose members at first “Loved each other very much and were living happily ever after” (Gordimer, 1). Yet, at the end trying to find more happiness away from the black population, they end up living a tragedy with the death of their son. This misfortune was due to their obsessive fear of the black world. During apartheid, white identity was schematized as power over the blackness of the rest of the population which was segregated. The essay through a literary analysis and a close reading of the text ought to bring out this white identity as conveyed and described by Gordimer. In the text, the white identity was expressed through fear and self-enclosure of the whites from the colored people with the use of allegories and representations.

In the text, Gordimer depicted the white family always trying to better their lives by fearing and protecting themselves from the black environment. In this perspective, Lazar supports, “In ‘Once upon a time’ the narrator suggests that white identity is validated through self-enclosure, fear of the other”. Lazar believes that the couple which represented the white world throughout the story, feared, insulated and

These ideas discussed above add weight to the argument that white identity was represented by self-insulation and fear of the blacks. However, the story itself entertains us about how human beings create, contribute and excel towards their own misfortune. We become victims of fear when it is excessive and security instead of protecting us, most of the time keeps us from interacting with the outside world. The fear of blacks and the insulation in the white house indeed describe well the