Once Upon a Time Nadine Gordimer Essay

In Nadine Gordimers Once Upon a magazine, Gordimer discusses the consequences of the familys actions due to paranoia of the outside world. In the extract, Gordimer paints a picture of how the orthodontic braces had interpreted extreme measures, erecting physical barriers around them to protect themselves from the purported dangers of their remote environment, until they are unaware about the dangers that these barriers pose to themselves.Hence, the extract underlines the dangers that prejudice poses for oneself and the futility of laborious to protect oneself from the infinite dangers lurking. In the higher up extract, Gordimer employs the use of the third someone narrative, which reveals the thoughts of the family members. The lector is allowed a birds eye view into the reasons wherefore safety was paramount to the couple and the measures taken by them to keep their foretoken safe. Also, with the third person narrative, details that foreshadow the grisly fate awaiting the e lflike boy are made more apparent.Moreover, without any names pegged to the characters, Gordimer leads the reader to believe 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 intimately anyone. Therefore, with the third person narrative, Gordimer non only manages to invoke the readers incredulity towards the extreme measures taken by the family in protecting themselves, besides also foreshadows the unhappy ending for a supposed fairy story. The purposeful thoughtlessness of the boy at the start of Gordimers narration in the above extract foreshadows that the boy would not be quick mirthfully eer after.The storys structure is a reversal of a classic fairytales structure, by stating that a man and his married woman who loved each other very much and were living happily ever after at the beginning. The story begins with the premi se that the couple is living happily ever after, but only introduces their child after, 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 separation of the boy from his parents. Gordimer also makes use of resource and jeering 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 would-be intruder which was masked which therefore proved the property owner was no anti-Semite(a) as one could not tell if the would-be intruder was melanize or white .The image of a silhouette already conjures up a sinister person in ones mind, which adds an wry element when one continues reading that people of another colour were quartered and not allowed into the suburb . The colour of a silhouette has one linking the intruder with black people as it is dark. This further adds on to the irony with the panic that the wife experiences that the black people might open the gates and stream in, as the family was concerned about protecting themselves from people who were already nix 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 entrepot 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 specially required to say his intentions with the installation of gates meant to keep intruders out. With the word announce, Gordimer highlights the futility of the secur ity measures taken by the family, because no intruder will need 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 civilized various(prenominal) 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 abject into. Thus, Gordimer allows the reader to rethink the effectiveness of the security measures employed by the family and the futility of much(prenominal) measures, as one cannot prevent someone who just wants to break in. word of honor Count 762 words