Once Upon a Time

A constant theme that I see throughout Nadine Gordimer's Once Upon a Time is irony. She begins the story with a an anecdote about how she was asked to write a children's story. Clearly, by the way she describes her declining of the request, children's stories are not her writing style. She then proceeds to write a dark and gloomy story that she claims is her "children's story" that she thought of after being woken in the night by a strange noise. This is ironic because she ends up writing a children's story that is not appropriate for young people at all. It is clear why she originally refuses to write the story, and I find humor in her subtle way of proving this to the reader. I found more irony in the story itself as well. Throughout the story, a couple (as well as the rest of society) is obsessed with continuously improving the security around their house in order to prevent intruders and robbers that seem to plague the suburb. The irony is that all the security measures only resulted in severe injuries to their son when he climbs into barbed wire that is supposed to be keeping the house intruder-free. One last example of irony is that Gordimer implements many aspects of. A fairy tale into this story to set the tone of a children's story, including the "wise old witch" and when the son attempts to conquer the barbed wire like the "Prince who braves the terrible thicket of thorns to enter the palace and kiss the Sleepig Beauty back to life". However, it is ironic that her story ends in such horrible trajedy with the boy getting mangled by the barbed wire, quite contradictory to most fairy tales and to Sleeping Beauty, the story to which Gordimer compares the boy's actions.