Analysis of Once Upon a Time

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Brinkley Ms. Edwards World Literature II 4 December 2012 Once Upon A Time: Nadine Gordimer Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer is perhaps one of the most international acclaimed writers of this time. She achieved lasting recognition for her works, which mainly covenant political issues, as well as the moral and psychological apprehension of her racially alienated home country. Henceforth, most of her works deal with premises of love and politics, mostly pertaining to race in South Africa. While reading her works and researching who Gordimer is, I find the correlation that she is constantly questioning power relations and truth. Gordimer tells stories of ordinary people, illuminating moral vagueness and varieties. Her characterization is nuanced, exposed more through the selections for her characters through their maintained identities and beliefs. Perhaps one of Gordimers’s most riveting and controversial literary pieces is Once Upon A Time. In this piece the most important element is its theme. The entire position of the story is about relaying to its readers that human beings create their own annihilation. The setting of the two parts of the story is important as well as the paradoxical structure presented. Suspense and tone also add to the final effect. All this is brought together to leave readers surprised, ready to rethink the magnitude of things in their own lives. The story begins with the author presenting a situation in which great fear exists. She hears a noise and is afraid of a burglar or murderer inside her house. However, she soon comes to realize that her fear was not something real, but that the noise causing her fear was really just the shifting of the earth. In the first-person prologue to the story Gordimer insists that she does not “write children’s stories” and then relates how “last night” she was “awakened without knowing what
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