Once Upon A Time

In our desire to protect ourselves and those we love, we can instead create potentially harmful situations. How does this happen in the story?

In the story, Nadine Gordimer brings about the fairy tale of a family living in the suburb of South Africa. The family tries to protect of themselves from the rest of the society by isolating themselves and building protection around the house. Protecting a loved one is the priority for anyone. However, the family in the story goes beyond what we call protection. As they become more deceptive and fearful, they start to build more wires and walls. Ironically, this exterior protection nearly kills their son. From this story, we are again reminded that more things create more problems. In this story, “things” would be protection around the house. For example, it is good to have money. However, if one has too much money, one loses ability to control oneself and often faces the tragic end. In this story, the fear of being attacked leads the family to be isolated from the society.

The author wrote this story in South Africa before the end of Apartheid. Why didn’t the author specifically speak of Aparthied or South Africa in her story?

The main purpose of this story is to send a general message to everyone. The author doesn’t want her story to be only applied to some group of people. Therefore, she doesn’t mention the actual location or Aparthied to make her story universal. If the story is based on South Africa, the reader might be inclined to believe that this situation is not relevant to her/him.


Why did the author write this story? Is there a purpose? Is there a deeper meaning?

The author writes this story to bring about the message or lesson for the reader. In this story, the family struggles from trying to protect and at the same time isolating themselves from the society. This is actually what is happening in our society. Everyone is becoming more individualistic and is only concerned about the safety of themselves. As a result, there is no communication among people creating the invisible boundary. The author is trying to stress on selfishness of our society and is making people more aware of this problem.

Who I am and why I am taking English10....

Hi, My name is Christina Shin. I am a grade 12 student attending Heritage Woods Secondary in Port Moody. I am taking a English10 online course. I wish to graduate by the end of this year.
I will be using this blog for English10. I am very interested in doing this blog. Also, I find it convenient to take the course online. I look forward to achieving my goal!!