Well, It's Not Exactly 'Shrek'...



Imagine a kid tangled up in this bad boy. Queasy yet?

 
   Once upon a time, in an AP Lit class, I read a short story called Once Upon a Time, by Nadine Gordimer.  I decided to start off with this story because I read it last so it's the freshest in my memory, and also because it had a really twisted ending (no pun intended).  I liked the 'fairy tale' for the most part, but after doing a little research on the author, the relevancy of the context just added so much more credibility to the story.  Throughout the work, it is relatively easy to pick up on the disdain the speaker has for separated socio-economic class societies, and the story declares this message even when taken as an individual piece.  But there's more...

I understand that we have this strong sense of 'speaker does not equal writer' or whatever in this class, but I do believe that in this case that doesn't apply.  The opening section of Once Upon a Time describes the author, Nadine Gordimer, and her current living conditions in South Africa (at the time this piece was written in the late 80s, apartheid was still going strong and internal resistance was culminating).  Gordimer reflects on being afraid of break-ins because these were commonplace at the time, and the short story she writes about a rich, fairy tale, happily ever after family that lives in constant fear of riots from the lower class coincides with the situations occuring in South Africa perfectly.  With this in mind, and with the story ending with the family's only son graphically and gruesomely dying of their own accord, the theme can be defined as such: racial and social segregation leads to pain and suffering for not only the oppressed, but the oppressor as well.  Gordimer made a political statement by suggesting that apartheid destroys an entire country, and the rich or upper class are not spared.  Cool stuff.