A short story, but rich with detail, "Once Upon a Time" is worthy of a careful examination. Put on your thinking caps and get discussing!
"Once Upon a Time" is unique in many ways. Discuss the power of this allegory. What is the story meant to represent? How does imagery play a key role in the disturbing nature of the story? How does tone contribute similarly, and does it in any way remind you of "The Lottery"? What do you make of the frame narrative? What exactly is Gordimer discussing in the opening frame? How much of what she says there is metaphor?
A short story, but rich with detail, "Once Upon a Time" is worthy of a careful examination. Put on your thinking caps and get discussing!
5 Comments
Rachel Coyne
10/14/2015 10:13:59 am
I think that this story is meant to represent a lesson. In the beginning, the author tells that she has been asked to write a children's story, therefore I believe that this story was meant to be a lesson to kids to be careful, especially with what was going on in South Africa at the time. It could be a warning to be aware of the safety precautions that they were taking because if they weren't safe to the outside then they may not have been safe on the inside either.
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Esther Gland
10/20/2015 06:23:58 am
I'm not sure what I thought of the frame narrative. In one sense, I thought it made the story seem less harsh. The narrator was trying to comfort herself so she made up a story about people protecting themselves but as the plot furthered, she realized that so much protection is ultimately counter productive. This might have served to provide comfort to the narrator as she had no bars on her windows. So it was a way of her convincing herself that she really was safer in the long run without any such protection. On the other hand, the imagery makes the ending really really disturbing and it would definitely NOT help me get to sleep if I were in the narrator's position.
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Isaac Esanbock
11/5/2015 06:03:31 pm
I think the main reason the story is a framed narrative is to connect the message to the reader. Not all readers are in dangerous or racially tense communities. The opening narrator though, lives in an extremely normal home. This makes the message relate-able to anyone.
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Jacqueline Dieckman
11/5/2015 07:11:47 pm
I think that one of the reasons for the framed narrative is to build up to the story. Issac, I feel you are right with this making it more relate-able, but it also sets you up for a false interpretation of how the story will go, especially because she says she will tell herself a bedtime story to try to get her mind off of the noises she hears in the house. You think that she will be telling this happy fairy-tale, and it does have that feeling to it, but towards the end, you can see how this makes it even more disturbing. This is defiantly not a story I would tell myself if I was scared in the middle of the night!
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Jacob Rielly
11/5/2015 01:11:38 pm
I think that the lesson of the story was defiantly that to much protection can be a bad thing. Like a lot of cases in real life, if a parent were to be over protective of a child in school they would probably be crazy at college. In the story they try so hard to protect their family, but did not realize they were putting themselves in more danger by surrounding theme selves with hazards. That is why the kid ends up dying at the had of their protective fences. That much protection was never justified, and the overkill became dangerous to the family.
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