Once Upon a Time

Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1989

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Summary

Story Analysis

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Symbols & Motifs

The Mine

Mines symbolize secrets, fear, and a past that some would like to remain hidden. The mine under the narrator’s house is a metaphor for the shaky foundations of a country built on a system of inequality, and on the fears that support that system.

Mines also symbolize greed. Mined materials are precious: the prospect of finding gold, silver, and diamonds motivates companies to take enormous investment risks and exploit their workforces to ensure they make the largest possible profits. Mining in South Africa, which began in the late 19th century, predated apartheid. The progressively stricter laws enacted to limit the wealth and mobility of Indigenous miners were the primary motivators for formalizing apartheid in 1948.

The Wise Old Witch

The narrator refers to the husband’s mother as the wise old witch. In fairy tales, the witch is usually the villain or someone who casts a spell on the protagonist. Witches symbolize occult knowledge and possess powers that ordinary people lack. Western culture often portrays witches as older women.

In this story, after the family has established its “happily ever after” life, the husband’s mother is the first person to warn them not to take in strangers (68). After the family decides that their wall should be higher, the husband’s mother pays for the extra bricks as a Christmas present. At the same time, she gifts the boy a book of fairy tales. Both gifts are central to the plot, later leading to the boy’s tragic game on the wall.

In fairy tales, witches have ill intent. They use their cunning to harm the protagonist and gain their own ends. In “Once Upon a Time,” the husband’s mother is not an evil character, and she gains nothing from the boy’s death. The adjective “wise” is a clue to Gordimer’s intention. As the oldest character in the story, the husband’s mother may have experienced similar events in her own time and may represent the conventions passed down through generations of white South Africans to retain their material security. She is a catalyst whose actions move the plot forward, and her ambiguous moral status invites the reader to question what she knows that the other characters do not.

Trustworthiness

The motif of trustworthiness accompanies most mentions of the domestic staff members who work in the suburb. The first description of the family’s housemaid is “absolutely trustworthy,” and the gardener comes “highly recommended” (68). Gordimer uses these descriptions satirically, for although the housemaid and gardener are trustworthy, identifying them in that manner implies that the family believes other Black South Africans are not. The high incidence of burglaries is not the only cause for the family’s alarm. They fear that the protests spreading in the townships will spill over into their neighborhood, even though the townships are sequestered and the police heavily limit the movement of Black South Africans. The theme of trustworthiness is ironic because, in the end, the parents are the ones who cannot be trusted to ensure their child’s safety.

The Neighborhood Watch Plaque

The plaque reading “YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED” is the only measure of security the family has taken when the story begins. It is significant that a mask hides the race of the intruder on the sign because it shows that the neighborhood’s residents do not want their security measures to appear to be motivated by racism. The phrase “YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED” suggests a consequence, but the sign does not make clear what that consequence is.

Under apartheid, white South Africans could own firearms. According to a BBC News article on race and gun ownership in South Africa:

the apartheid government encouraged white citizens to arm themselves against ‘die swart gevaar’ (the black threat). The authorities instilled a fear that there was something lurking in the shadows, that somehow marauding black crowds would come and take over [white citizens’] prized possessions (“Oscar Pistorius and South Africa’s gun obsession,” 5 Dec. 2015).

This description sounds eerily similar to the wife’s fears of rioting crowds streaming through their gate and the narrator’s fear of the shadowy intruder whose footsteps she imagines she hears.

The narrator mentions that some people have a gun under their pillow for protection, but the fairy tale family does not seem to own a gun. Given the rights of gun ownership under apartheid, it is notable that Gordimer does not refer to firearms as one of the means that the family and their neighbors have to protect themselves. It is possible that the consequence following the sign’s warning would be that a white resident would shoot an intruder who entered the homeowner’s property. The wife fears people from the township will come and rip the plaque off their gate, so it is also possible that the sign is an empty threat. The theme of warning intruders implies that the family brings tragic consequences on itself by posting the sign.