Once Upon a Time Nadine Gordimer Essay

In Nadine Gordimers Once Upon a Time, Gordimer discusses the consequences of the familys actions due to paranoia of the tabuside world. In the extract, Gordimer paints a picture of how the tally had taken extreme measures, erecting physical barriers around them to protect themselves from the purported dangers of their external environment, until they are unaware nigh the dangers that these barriers pose to themselves.Hence, the extract underlines the dangers that outrage poses for oneself and the futility of trying to protect oneself from the infinite dangers lurking. In the above extract, Gordimer employs the use of the ternion person narrative, which reveals the thoughts of the family members. The reader is allowed a birds eye view into the reasons why safety was preponderating to the couple and the measures taken by them to keep their house safe. Also, with the third person narrative, details that foreshadow the dismal fate awaiting the little boy are made more apparent.Mor eover, without any names pegged to the characters, Gordimer leads the reader to imagine that the incident seems typical, which conversely allows the reader to be provoked into a stronger reaction towards the devasting effects that prejudice brings and the possibility that it can happen to almost anyone. Therefore, with the third person narrative, Gordimer not nevertheless manages to invoke the readers incredulity towards the extreme measures taken by the family in protecting themselves, but as well foreshadows the unhappy stopping point for a supposed fairytale. The purposeful omission of the boy at the start of Gordimers narration in the above extract foreshadows that the boy would not be living gayly always after.The drools structure is a reversal of a classic fairytales structure, by stating that a man and his wife who loved each other very much and were living happily ever after at the beginning. The story begins with the premise that the couple is living happily ever aft er, but only introduces their child later, which breaks the conventional fairytales structure, foreshadowing an unhappy ending. Thus, Gordimer foreshadows that the boy was unable to live happily at the end of the story with a reversed fairytales structure and the deliberate dissolution of the boy from his parents. Gordimer also makes use of imagery and irony to emphasise the extreme prejudice that the family harbours and the effects of prejudice that they would later experience. In the extract, the plaque to deter intruders had the silhouette of a manque intruder which was masked which hence proved the property owner was no racist as one could not tell if the would-be intruder was saturnine or white .The image of a silhouette already conjures up a black person in ones mind, which adds an ironic element when one continues reading that community of another colour were quartered and not allowed into the suburb . The colour of a silhouette has one linking the intruder with black peo ple as it is dark. This further adds on to the irony with the panic that the wife experiences that the black people ability open the furnish and stream in, as the family was concerned about protecting themselves from people who were already barred from their suburb merely due to their race. One could not tell a persons race merely from a silhouette, which emphasises how narrow-minded and racially biased the community is. Thus, Gordimer points out the absurdity of actions carried out due to a persons racist outlook and foretells the disastrous consequences in store for the family. Gordimer also uses diction to convey the absurdity of the protective measures as taken by the family.She writes that anyone who tried to open the gates and pulled off the sign is oddly required to presage his intentions with the installation of gates meant to keep intruders out. With the word announce, Gordimer highlights the futility of the security measures taken by the family, because no intruder will request for permission to break in and underlines the ludicrousness of trying to be protected from intruders. The irony is that the intruder is now depicted as a fine-tune individual who would await permission before intruding. Additionally, the gates were meant to keep intruders at bay, not to serve as a warning to the family before the house was broken into. Thus, Gordimer allows the reader to rethink the effectiveness of the security measures utilize by the family and the futility of such measures, as one cannot prevent someone who just wants to break in.Word look at 762 words