Once Upon a Time

I denne study guide kan du få hjælp til at analysere novellen "Once Upon a Time" af Nadine Gordimer. Udover analysehjælpen kan du finde et summary af teksten samt idéer til fortolkning og perspektivering.

Præsentation af teksten

Titel: “Once Upon a Time” (1989)
Forfatter: Nadine Gordimer
Genre: Short story

Nadine Gordimer (1923-2014) var en sydafrikansk forfatter, som skrev både romaner og noveller. I 1991 modtog hun Nobelprisen i litteratur for sit forfatterskab. Mange af Gordimers tekster handler om de omfattende sociale problemer, som apartheidstyret i Sydafrika var årsag til.

Uddrag

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Physical setting

The time and physical setting of “Once Upon a Time” by Nadine Gordimer is not explicitly specified, which at first glance seems like a typical fairy-tale feature. However, several hints indicate that the events take place somewhere in South Africa, during the time when the apartheid system was in place. Apartheid was a political system of racial discrimination, which was in place from 1948 until the 1990s. This setting is reinforced by the description of the white suburban neighborhood and the fact that Gordimer frequently sets her stories in South Africa during the apartheid regime.

The physical setting of the outer story is the writer’s house. At nighttime, the writer is startled by strange noises she hears in the house (p. 1, ll. 10-12). The writer reveals that her suspicions that a perpetrator has entered the house were invalid, as the noises were caused by a mining site over which the house is built (p. 1, ll. 25-29). Symbolically, the writer’s house might represent the separation between black and white South Africans. While black people historically worked in mines, the writer – a white woman – lives comfortably in a house above the mine.