"Once Upon a Time" by: Nadine Gordimer

I found this story to be very ironic. The parents, housemaid, and the husband's mother spent the entire story attempting to keep the home safe and to protect their family, but in the end, it was this protection that tore the family apart, killing the boy. It was also ironic that the narrator began the story talking about children's books and saying she has been asked to right one and ended the story with a tragic death of a young boy. Personally, I find the narrator to be extremely demented and scary. Maybe the worst part of the whole story is that this is her bed-time story. She even goes as far as to compare the young boys "adventure" to his death with Sleeping Beauty. I don't think I'll ever look at that fairytale the same again. I also noticed that in the last paragraph after the boy has been freed, the narrator refers to him as an "it." I took this as the narrator saying that the boy had been so mangled that he no longer looked recognizable and therefore, had become an it instead of a him. I found this entire story to be very disturbing and demented.