Once Upon a Time

In this story Once Upon a Time, written by Nadine Gordimer, the author builds starts off by writing of a time when she felt fear herself. She was in her house and she hears a sound, and this sounds invokes her to begin to attempt to figure out what is creating that sound. Eventually, in an attempt to get back to sleep, she decides to tell herself a story. That story is of a family attempting to keep themselves safe. I enjoyed the background intro including the author leading up to the actual story within the story(totally inception) because of the intense suspense build up. While reading it I thought for sure that someone was going to attack and demand she her to write a children's story. That would have been some situational irony. But instead, she builds up this story of a completely safe place for a wonderfully nice family, and creates the ultimate situational irony. In a complete accident the couples son attempts to cross the barrier of metal doom and diminishes within. This is situational irony because it is completely unexpected. The realization of the danger that the parents provided became evident when she wrote, "The little boy was hacked out of the security coil"(236). It most definitely is not what should happen in the story subsequently making it one of my favorite children's stories of all time.