Once Upon A Time...Ironic

Once Upon a Time - Nadine Gordimer

Gordimer presents the reader with dramatic irony in the ending of the story with the little boy's death. His demise is ironically brought on by the parent's over precaution when trying to shield their boy from the outside world. The story reveals that the boy was pretending to be "the Prince who braves the terrible thicket of thorns to enter the palace and kiss the Sleeping Beauty back to life..." (Gordimer, 236). After his mother read him the fairy tales and sheltered him from the real world outside, the boy was unable to judge dangers for himself and ended up hurting himself by acting out a fairy tale in his supposedly ultra-safe habitation. Turns out that the fairy tale life that we can try to achieve cannot shield us from the dangers outside of our minds or the pages of a fairy tale.