Literary Analysis: Once Upon A Time By Nadine Gordimer

Entering a conversation about literature
‘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 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 has schemed 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

Adding to his argument, I would first point out that fear first appeared in the beginning of the passage when the narrator got scared of a noise attributed to a harmful invader. Nevertheless, fear in both situations was unfounded. Sounds at night do not always depict danger as the narrator assumes. Moreover, the black population did not have access to the suburbs unless working there so the chances of attacking the suburb were minimal. Secondly, the apartheid world of Nadine Gordimer was illustrated through allegories and symbols. The wall symbolized the middle line to not cross between the two societies, black and white. The security systems reflected the excessive privileges of the whites upon the black population in the everyday life. The husband’s mother named “wise old witch” (Gordimer, 1) played the role of supremacists that led the movement of segregation against blacks. The death of the white boy told us about the end of the white supremacy upon the oppressed population. This analysis of ‘Once Upon a Time’ painted the allegory in the story which communicated a children version of apartheid in South