Nadine Gordimer portrays the married couple in Once Upon a Time as alert and overprotective people who try to turn their home into a safer place. Gordimer portrays them this way to warn others against resorting to extremes because the results may be catastrophic. At first, they only seem cautious when it comes to their security. As the story progresses however, they start to make more drastic changes in their home and turn it into an uncomfortable place to live in. Towards the end, their need for protection makes them paranoid and causes the death of their own child.
I. When the couple is introduced, they seem wary about their security just like anyone else might be, and they have the basic means of caution.
a) " They had a housemaid who was absolutely trustworthy and an itinerant gardener who was highly recommended by the neighbors.
b) "They were inscribed in a medical benefit society, their pet dog was licensed, they were insured against fire, flood damage and theft , and subscribed to the local Neighborhood Watch."
II. Soon enough, the couple begins to worry more and more about their safety and they begin to install bothersome mechanisms in their house.
a) "So from every window and door in the house where they were living happily ever after they now saw the trees and sky through bars"
b)When the little boy's pet cat tried to climb in by the fanlight to keep him company in his little bed at night, as it customarily had done, it set off the alarm keening through the house."
III. The couple's need for protection turns into an obsession and their son suffers the consequences of their actions.
a) " Next day a gang of workmen came and stretched the razor-bladed coils all around the walls of the house"
b)"the bleeding mass of the little boy was hacked out of the security coil with saws, wire-cutters, choppers, and they carried it the man, the wife, the hysterical trusted housemaid and the weeping gardener into the house."
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