Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Once Upon a Time, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Wealth Inequality and Fear
Apartheid, Racism, and Property
Separation and the Illusion of Security
Storytelling
Summary
Analysis
When someone writes to the narrator to ask if she’ll write a short story for children, she declines on the grounds that she doesn’t write for children. The letter-writer pushes back, saying that he once heard a novelist insist that all writers should write at least one short story for children. The narrator considers writing back that she doesn’t feel like she has to write anything.
The story immediately introduces the theme of storytelling through the narrator’s occupation as a writer, the fact that she’s narrating these events to the reader, and the man’s request that she contribute a short story to an anthology. The narrator’s refusal to tell a certain kind of story—in this case, a children’s story—begins to hint at the idea that people must be careful about the stories they tell themselves.
Themes
The narrator recalls being woken up suddenly the previous night by a creaking sound, which sounds suspiciously like someone walking on a wooden floor. Ears perked, she strains to hear the creaking sound to discern if it’s moving closer to her bedroom door. She doesn’t have security bars on the windows, nor does she have a gun, but that doesn’t mean she’s not fearful. The narrator recounts how, last year, a woman was murdered inside a house two blocks away in the middle of the day, and an old man and his vicious guard dogs were killed by a worker whom the man had let go without pay.
It seems that the narrator’s choice to not protect her home from intruders is a conscious one. Clues throughout the story—plus Gordimer’s own history—suggests that this story is set in apartheid-era South Africa, which was a time of severe violence, racism, and white supremacy. Given this context, readers can reasonably assume that the narrator—implied to be a white woman—is making a political and ethical decision not to insulate herself from the non-white people who are moved to violence and criminality under such an oppressive system. However, that doesn’t mean she’s not afraid of the very real threat of violence unfolding in her own neighborhood, as she immediately assumes that she’s about to be killed or robbed.
Themes
Lying in bed in the dark, the narrator already feels like a victim of a crime, and her heart beats wildly in her chest. However, she soon realizes that the creaking sound isn’t from an intruder’s footsteps. Her house is built atop of mines, so whenever chunks of hollowed-out rock fall away thousands of feet below where the narrator sleeps, the foundation of the house creaks slightly.
The narrator’s fear gestures to the idea that the inequality of material conditions breeds fear, which is a thread that runs throughout both the frame story about the narrator and the inner story that’s still to come. With that in mind, the fact that the ground underneath the narrator’s house is falling away points to the way that, like the hollowed-out rock undermines the foundation of the house, inequality gradually undermines the foundations of society and may one day destroy it entirely.
Themes
As her pulse slows, the narrator thinks of the Chopi and Tsonga migrant workers who toil away down in the mines. She imagines that the mine underneath her house may be no longer in use, or it may now be the gravesite of all the men who were working there before the rock fell away. Unable to fall back asleep, the narrator begins to tell herself a bedtime story.
The mention of the Chopi and Tsonga people—ethnic groups native to Mozambique, South Africa—further situates this story in apartheid-era South Africa. That the narrator assumes the workers toiling away in the mines are black migrants paints a picture of a sociopolitical environment in which black people have few opportunities for economic advancement and must take dangerous—and presumably low-paying—jobs. It’s also metaphorically significant that the black workers are laboring in mines far below the city, reflecting their position at the very bottom of apartheid’s social pyramid.
Themes
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In the narrator’s story, a loving husband and wife and their beloved little boy are “living happily ever after” in a suburban house. The little boy has a cat and dog, both of whom he loves dearly. The family has a trailer for camping and a swimming pool that’s enclosed by a fence to prevent the little boy from falling in and drowning. The housemaid is “absolutely trustworthy,” and their “itinerant gardener” came highly recommended—after all, the husband’s mother, “that wise old witch,” had warned them to not just hire anyone off the street.
The story begins in an almost singsong-y way, as the narrator lists all of the family’s possessions—suggesting that material possessions will play a key role in the story—and paints their life as nothing short of idyllic. Though the story doesn’t actually begin with the words “Once upon a time,” the story’s title and the mention of “living happily ever after” both lead the reader to believe that this story will be a modern children’s fairytale. However, the narrator begins the story with the family living happily ever after—usually the very last line in fairytales—which suggests that this peaceful, perfect life is about to be dismantled. The mention of the gates around the pool to keep the boy from drowning also feels somewhat jarring and morbid in the midst of so much cheerfulness, foreshadowing the tragedy to come. The mention of the gates around the pool and the “absolutely trustworthy” staff also suggests that the family is concerned with safety.
Themes
The family has medical insurance and disaster insurance, and they’re members of the local Neighborhood Watch organization, hence the plaque reading, “YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED” that’s affixed to their front gates. On the plaque is the silhouette of a masked intruder, but it’s impossible to tell if he’s black or white, which “therefore proved the property owner was no racist.”
Once again, it’s clear that the family is preoccupied with safety and does everything in their power to insulate themselves from disaster. The idea that the ambiguous silhouette on the Neighborhood Watch sign “proved the property owner was no racist” is ridiculous, as it’s made abundantly clear throughout the story that this family—and others in the suburb—fear black intruders in particular, which is whom the sign is aimed to deter. That the ambiguous skin color of the intruder on the sign is somehow evidence of anti-racism seems to be a narrative that the family is telling themselves to make them feel like morally upstanding people.
Themes
The one thing the family’s insurance doesn’t cover, however, is riot damage. But the riots take place outside of city limits, where black people are “quartered,” and black people are only allowed into the suburb as “reliable housemaids and gardeners.” Still, the wife fears that “such people” might one day invade their suburb and surge through their front gates; her husband reminds her that law enforcement officers have guns and tear gas “to keep them away.”
The word “quartered,” which means “housed in a specific place,” brings to mind images of slave quarters—housing that is crowded, dilapidated, and intentionally set away from white people (as is the case here, too). The word also carries with it an element of control: the apartheid government has the power to tell black people where to live and where they can and cannot go, corralling and commanding them like animals rather than treating them as human beings with agency. Beyond this, the family refers to black people as “them” or “such people,” and the family also characterize black people as animals by suggesting that they must be tamed or controlled by violence. Separation is a key theme throughout the story—like black people being forced to live separately from white people—and it appears again in this passage through the distinction of “reliable housemaids and gardeners.” This implicitly suggests that black people are unreliable by default, while a select few stand apart.
Themes
To appease his wife—and because extreme violence is taking place just outside the city—the man has electronically controlled gates installed in front of the house, complete with a speaker system that allows visitors to relay a message to someone inside the house. The little boy is delighted and uses it as a walkie-talkie when he plays cops and robbers with his friends.
This passage continues to build on the theme of separation by showing how it can create an illusion of safety. The couple believes that adding this extra barrier—electronically controlled gates—around their property will somehow insulate them from the violence that springs from living in an unequal, oppressive society. Meanwhile, the little boy’s fascination with the speaker system—coupled with his playful game of cops and robbers—emphasizes his young age and also implicitly suggests that his parents haven’t talked to him about what the gates are specifically for or what is going on more broadly in their community. Even though the boy is quite young, the story repeatedly implies that his parents are in the wrong for not openly discussing racism, inequality, and their own fear with him.
Themes
Burglaries begin taking place across the suburb, and the couple’s housemaid knows of a fellow housemaid who was tied up and locked in a cupboard by robbers while her employers were gone. This worries the couple’s housemaid because she, too, is often left alone in the house and in charge of her employers’ possessions. She implores the couple to add security bars on the windows and doors and to invest in an alarm system; the wife agrees, and the extra security features are promptly installed. The family now sees the sky and nature outside through metal bars, and the little boy’s cat sets off the alarm at night.
The housemaid’s deep anxiety of being in charge, however temporarily, of her employers’ possessions speaks to the way that wealth inequality creates fear. Her feeling that she’s going to be tied up and locked in a cabinet echoes the narrator’s instant assumption in the frame story that the creaking sound in her house is an intruder who is there to rob or kill her. But while the narrator makes the ethical decision not to barricade her house (signifying her ideological unity with black South Africans, even though this does nothing to change their material conditions), the family in the inner story rushes to fortify their house and belongings in whatever way they can. Significantly, neither reaction alleviates fear: the family just continues to add more and more security features to their house, while the narrator understands that her decision doesn’t make her impervious to the consequences of an oppressive society. And while the family thinks they’re protecting themselves from the outside world, the image of them looking at the sky and trees through barred windows suggests that they’re actually imprisoning themselves.
Themes
The neighbors’ alarm systems are also triggered by cats or mice. Alarms go off so frequently in the suburbs that they begin to sound like cicadas or frogs humming in the background of everyday life. Thieves take advantage of this and carry out their robberies while the alarms are blaring so that homeowners don’t hear them coming and going, arms laden with jewels, television sets, and expensive clothing.
The security systems in the suburb are comically ineffective—for one thing, they’re triggered by the entirely harmless things like mice and pet cats, and for another, they end up being totally ignored. While the people in the neighborhood think that insulating themselves from outsiders with an alarm system will make them safer, this feeling of safety is only an illusion. Indeed, the blaring alarms actually prove to be an effective cover for thieves coming and going, emphasizing how trying to separate oneself from outsiders will inevitably fail.
Themes
Eventually, other black people besides just “trusted housemaids and gardeners” begin loitering in the suburbs, looking for work—but the man and his wife heed to the husband’s mother’s warning about not hiring people off of the streets. Moved by the sight of people begging, the woman orders the housemaid to bring them bread and tea, but the housemaid refuses, insisting that the beggars are tsotsis (criminals) who will tie her up. The husband agrees and tells his wife that she would only be “encourag[ing] them” and that “They are looking for their chance.”
The story often uses the phrase “trusted housemaids and gardeners” or “reliable housemaids and gardeners.” In repeatedly making the distinction, the story is showcasing the way that white people like the husband and wife make sweeping generalizations about black people. They imply that black people are inherently unreliable and untrustworthy, and that there are only a few exceptions to this rule. In this passage, it is the housemaid, a black woman, who contributes to the oppression of those of her own race. However, this doesn’t mean that the housemaid herself is racist. Instead, it seems that the housemaid realizes that her position as the maid for an upper-class white family puts her in danger. When “Once Upon a Time” was published in the late 1980s, crime was at an all-time high: between 1980 and 1990, burglaries rose by 31 percent, while serious offenses rose by 22 percent. This surge in crime was at least partially a reaction to a new constitution implemented in the mid-1980s that guaranteed parliamentary representation to “colored” (mixed-race) people and Asian people but not black people. Given this context, it’s clear that the housemaid’s fear of the tsotsis—South African slang for “hooligans” or “criminals”—is justified and hinges on the broader sociopolitical environment rather than personal discrimination.
Themes
When the husband realizes that the electronic gates, alarm system, and security bars won’t prevent an intruder from climbing over the wall into the garden, the wife suggests that they make the wall higher. For Christmas, the husband’s mother, “the wise old witch,” gifts the couple with extra bricks for their wall. The little boy receives a book of fairytales and a Space Man costume.
The mounting security measures surrounding the couples’ home mirrors both their own mounting fear and uneasiness and the increasingly fraught political atmosphere in South Africa. It’s significant that the husband realizes that their previous investments in home security aren’t comprehensive and fool-proof—while the husband is under the impression that a higher wall is the answer, the story implicitly suggests that it’s actually impossible to fully separate oneself from others. Meanwhile, the small detail about the little boy’s Christmas presents is another reminder of his innocence and youth, which contrasts starkly with the heavy anxiety, fear, and political unrest coloring the rest of the story. The book of fairytales coupled with the repetition of the phrase “wise old witch” is yet another nod to the story’s fairytale title—“Once Upon a Time”—and paves the way for the story’s return to the theme of storytelling near the end of the narrative.
Themes
The robberies and intrusions continue in the suburb at all hours of the day and night. One day, as the husband and wife discuss this, they watch the little boy’s cat effortlessly scale the seven-foot wall. The side of the wall facing the street is marked up with the cat’s paw prints—as well as the outline of the kind of shabby running shoes that the loiterers in the suburb wear.
The footprints up the side of the wall are another indication that one can’t fully wall themselves off from other people, and that trying to insulate oneself like this brings a false sense of security. Even though the couple’s security system is multilayered (and getting more robust by the day, it seems, with all of the couple’s additions), it’s still not infallible. Earlier, the story noted how the cat often set off the security alarm, and now the cat easefully scales the front wall.
Themes
Later, the man and his wife take the little boy and his dog out for a walk around the neighborhood. While the couple used to leisurely admire their neighbors’ roses or perfectly manicured lawns, they now scrutinize their neighbors’ various security systems. Some people have opted for the utilitarian option of shards of glass embedded in concrete walls, while other neighbors attempt to blend spears, iron grilles, and lances into their specific architectural styles. When the little boy runs ahead, the husband and wife discuss the pros and cons of each security system.
What were once cheerful family homes have turned into austere compounds, showing how the inequality of material possessions churns up fear and distrust. Instead of being horrified by this new normal, the couple intends to join in and build even more monuments to their fear. Indeed, the different materials listed in this passage—concrete, glass, iron, paint—almost make the security systems seem like outrageous art projects.
Themes
Eventually, the husband and wife settle on a security system that is by far the ugliest of them all—it looks like something out of a concentration camp—but is hopefully the most effective in warding off intruders. The security system consists of a series of metal coils attached all the way up the length of the house. Each coil is spiked with jagged razor-sharp thorns, ensuring that anyone who tries to climb up the coils—or even climb out of the coil—will immediately be shredded to bits in “a struggle getting bloodier and bloodier.”
That the couple picks a security system that looks fit for a concentration camp—Gordimer explicitly uses this term—again rehashes the idea that in trying to protect and insulate themselves from the violent outside world, the family is actually imprisoning themselves. In this way, all of these security measures are just as destructive for would-be intruders as they are for the family itself, which is an idea that will continue to build as the story comes to a close. The razor wire symbolizes the ruinous logic of apartheid. Like a would-be intruder struggling to free themselves from the wire’s thorny grasp, those oppressed under apartheid rule are trapped in “a struggle getting bloodier and bloodier.”
Themes
The next day, workmen from the Dragon’s Teeth security company install the razor wire on the house where the family is “living happily ever after.” Now wrapped in metal, the house gleams harshly in the sun. The husband assures his wife that the metal will weather over time and take on a softer look, but she tells him that he’s wrong—the metal is weather-proof. They both hope that the cat won’t try to scale the walls anymore. Luckily, the cat stays either in the little boy’s bed or in the garden and doesn’t try to climb.
While at the beginning of the narrator’s bedtime story about the family, the phrase “living happily ever after” painted a cheerful picture of a happy family who was indeed living out a life fit for a fairytale, now it’s used ironically. No part of the family’s life—which is clearly marked by fear and self-isolation—seems happy anymore. The cat was the last creature that enjoyed mobility, and now even the cat is imprisoned inside the compound. Given that the razor wire is a symbol for apartheid, it’s significant that in this passage, the wife firmly informs his husband that he’s wrong about the metal weathering. Her disagreement seems to imply that the violence, fear, and oppression wrapped up in apartheid rule won’t simply soften or go away over time by doing nothing, and telling oneself this narrative is unproductive.
Themes
At night, the woman reads the little boy the story of Sleeping Beauty from the book of fairytales that the husband’s mother got him for Christmas. The following day, the little boy pretends to be the brave Prince who must fight his way through a dense thicket of thorns in order to get to Sleeping Beauty and awaken her with a kiss. Deciding that the new razor wire wall will be the perfect thicket of thorns, the little boy lugs a ladder over to the way and wriggles into a coil.
In the story of Sleeping Beauty, an evil witch puts a curse on Sleeping Beauty that puts her to sleep until her true love wakes her with a kiss. But to keep the Prince—who is her true love—from reaching her, the witch surrounds Sleeping Beauty in a thicket of thorns. In the end, the Prince gets through the thorns and saves Sleeping Beauty. That the little boy reenacts this story by climbing the razor wire highlights how the stories people tell themselves can be lethal.
Themes
Immediately, the razor thorns dig into the little boy’s skin, and he screams in agony, inadvertently entangling himself deeper and deeper into the wire. The housemaid and gardener come running first, screaming, and the gardener tries unsuccessfully to get the little boy out, badly wounding his own hands in the process.
Given that the razor wire is a symbol for the ruinous logic of apartheid, this passage emphasizes how apartheid hurts innocent people (here, the little boy and the gardener who is trying to fish him out). It even harms the very people who thought they would benefit from it (the suburban family who thought the security system would keep them safe from harm).
Themes
The husband and wife come running out next, and the house alarm begins to blare, most likely set off yet again by the cat. The little boy’s body, now a “bleeding mass” is “hacked out” of the razor wire with several types of heavy equipment. The man, his wife, the housemaid, and gardener carry “it” into the house.
This gruesome passage again speaks to the way that the stories people tell themselves can be dangerous and even outright deadly. The little boy’s family is always telling themselves a story in which they are the heroes and their oppressed black neighbors are the villains, the intruders and vagrants that threaten them and spoil their otherwise perfect lives. But this story that they’re telling themselves is racist and completely divorced from the reality of the situation, in which the white family is benefiting from the exploitation of poor, black South Africans. The family telling themselves the wrong story leads to tragedy when their son dies in the process of reenacting a fairytale (it’s implied that he dies since his body is referred to as “it”). But on a broader scale, telling the wrong story also props up the social norms that Gordimer suggests will destroy society.
Themes
