Apartheid

Apartheid is an Afrikaans word that means separateness. It was a system of segregation that the National Party in South Africa made a law after it won the 1948 election. Under apartheid people were classified into one of three groups, white, black or coloured. The system oppressed the black and the coloured but favoured the withes. Apartheid covered all aspect of life, marriage, careers, justice, education and where one could live. The struggle to abolish a whole social system was long, and sometimes violent.

 

In South Africa, white, black and coloured were divided in groups. Coloured and black were discriminated.

In USA, black people were separated from others such as whites, because their skin colour.

 

 

Once Upon a Time

Nadine Gordimer born in 1923, is South African writer, activist and politician. She won the booker prize in 1974 and the Nobel prize for literature in 1991.

 

Once Upon a Time is novel or a short story about a happy family, a wife, men, little son, dog, and cat,  who are living in an affluent suburb of South Africa and who move emotionally from contentment to fear as their protect and isolated themselves from the black and poor people. Gradually they add more protection to their home as they fear grows. They install boomerangs back and injures.

 

Explain why apartheid is one of the themes in the story.

In this story, the author used apartheid as one of the theme of the story by showing how important the communication between people is in a society no matter their differences. The family that is illustrated in the story can be compared to the group of the white people during apartheid as they were living in a house under strict security control. This can therefore be compared to the situation of the three different groups of people during the terrible apartheid period. Black and whites were living in harsh conditions while white people were having luxurious lives. The author shows in a way that separating people because of their color is not the best and that it was going to lead nowhere other than violence or any other evil acts. This was illustrated at the end of the story as the family had a bad ending.

Find elements of fairy tales.

The story contains some elements of fairy tales such as the very beginning, ‘Once Upon a Time’, the use of witchcraft

Why can we call this story a reverse of a fairy tale?

It is because the story has not a happy ending as a fairy tale has always a happy ending.