Nadine Gordimer
Nadine Gordimer's "Once Upon a Time" begins with the telling of two stories. The first is about the author, who awakes in the middle of the night, afraid of a possible intruder. Then, to distract her mind, she creates a second story. The story is a fairytale of an affluent family living in the suburbs, which have a baseless fear of the impoverished because of preconceived beliefs about racial tension. In response, they attempt to create the perfect home security- system. The two stories relate through their theme of unfounded fear based on handed-down beliefs. In addition, the stories reflect the negative effect and consequences of the defenses that people create to protect themselves from their fear. Fear is a natural human response and safeguard to threatening situations, yet it does not need a real danger to reveal itself. Often, irrational thinking will lead to exaggerations and generalizations of the improbable, which fosters anxiety. For example, the man and woman within the fairytale story are far removed and protected from any harmful occurrences at the onset of the story. "There were riots, but these were outside the city, where people of another color were quartered...these people were not allowed into the suburbs" (25
The negative effects of creating mental, emotional, and physical defenses based on ungrounded fear are enormous. The family is acting on a passed-down belief system, which crushes human feeling with inflexibility and distrust of the poor. The husband illustrates this in response to his wife's charity to the hungry; "You only encourage them with your bread and tea. They are looking for their chance...." (255) Consequently, their fears are projected onto others, so they no longer help the starving. In addition, the suburbia residents lose the beauty and freedom of their homes by turning them into prisons. " They no longer pause to admire this show of roses or that perfect lawn; these were hidden behind an array of different varieties of security fences, walls and devices (255)...they now saw the trees and sky through bars" (254). They go into hiding, closing themselves off to life. Finally, they are intellectually stunted because their anxieties are feeding into their bias. Their failure to think critically is shown when outside the family's wall "...there were larger red-earth smudges that could have been made by the kind of broken running shows, seen on the feet of unemployed loiterers that had no innocent destination"(225). The man and women are assuming that the pair of footprints belong to a loiterer, and infer that the loiter wants to break into their home. This is even after they have increased the height of the wall surrounding their property. In effect, they are creating the very fate they fear though their suspicions; destroying any possibilities of contentment and of a happy-ending. In response, to protect them from their fear, the man and women create various def
Some common words found in the essay are:
Nadine Gordimer's, Sleeping Beauty, belief system, irrational thinking, emotional response, family acting, coiled tunnel, living happily, fairytale story,
Approximate Word count = 1136
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
