The document discusses the short story "Once Upon a Time" by Nadine Godimer. It explores the relationship between the writer and the story, examining how Godimer's own experiences with overprotective parents who withdrew her from school and activities due to illness may have influenced the story. Multiple pieces of evidence from the story are presented that illustrate the overprotective measures the parents took, from security systems to keeping their son isolated. The document theorizes that these story elements relate back to Godimer's own upbringing in South Africa under similar circumstances.

1. ONCE UPON A TIME
BY NADINE GODIMER
ISSUES ON OVER-PROTECTIVE
PARENTS

2. WHAT IS THE RELATION
BETWEEN THE WRITER AND THE
STORY?
 The story was written in 1961
 The idea of over-protective parents maybe
adapted from the writer’s life herself. For example
; according to her biography, Nadine’s brief
illness frightened her mother so severely that she
withdrew the child from dance classes and then
from school altogether. From then on she was
educated at home.

3. EVIDENCES
 Fenced swimming pool
 Not to take anyone off the street
 Their pet dog was licensed
 “YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED” plague
 Insured against fire, flood damage, theft and
subscribe to the local neighbourhood
 House maid was absolutely trustworthy and
itinerant gardener who was highly recommended
by the neighbour
 Had electronically controlled gate

4.  Installation of intercom
 Burglar bars attached to the doors and windows of
the house
 Lined the outside walls with razor-bladed coils
 Alarm system
 He brought a little boys tricycle from the garden into
the house every night
 The husband’s mother paid for the extra bricks as
her Christmas present to make the wall higher
 The perfect lawn were hidden behind an array of
different varities of security fences, walls and devices
 It was the ugliest but the almost honest in its
suggestion of the pure concentration/style, no
frills, all evidence efficacy
 Consult “DRAGON TEETH-the security company ”
for their total security

5. EXPLANATIONS
 It can be ralated to the writer’s personal/life background
 South-African
 Over-protective parents
 Home school
 Maybe the writer herself lived among those kinds of
neighbourhood
 First paragraph/story shows it all
 She can’t sleep etc.
 I have no burglar bars, no guns under the pillow but I have
the same fears as people who do take this precautions, my
window panes are thin as rime could shatter like a wine
glass.

6.  The kid in the story has no exposure to the real
world same as what had Nadine Gordimer
experienced during her childhood. Nadine Gordimer
had few friends and no literary life, she found a world
of adventure and ideas in reading. Then, she began
to write fiction of her own.
 If he grows up the problem in social interaction,
communication issues and relationship with other
people may occur.
 May become someone whose racist
 Because of the over-protectiveness, the fear
develops within himself

7. CONCLUSION
 In a nutshell, we need to put ourselves in the
writer’s shoes in order to understand the
messages that the writer want to deliver.
 Over-protectiveness