Irony in "Once Upon a Time" by Nadine Gordimer

I think that Nadine Gordimer uses irony in her short story "Once Upon a Time” to send her readers the main idea of the story in a more interesting way than just directly explaining it. Irony is a useful way to convey the main ideas in a text because it makes the short story more interesting and exciting because it shocks and surprises the people reading the story.

I think that the main type of irony that Gordimer uses in her short story is situational irony. Situational irony occurs when the opposite of what is expected happens. Gordimer uses this constantly throughout her story. It is ironic that the thing that the little boy's parents installed to keep him safe and protected is the thing that harmed him most. This is ironic because his parents built the security system with the intention of keeping him safe, but in the end, the complete opposite happened. We, as the readers, expected the security system to keep him safe and not cause him any damage. The opposite of what we expected happened.

Gordimer uses irony to twist our expectations and end the story in a completely different way than how we think it is going to end. We expected there to be a happy ending because of the story line and the way she sets the story up, but the story ended tragically. She also used irony by creating a title that misleads its readers and gives them a false impression about what the story is about, as well as playing with our expectation of a fairy tale. It is ironic how their goal is to be completely safe, and yet they are the ones putting themselves at risk. “He pretended to be the Prince who braves the terrible thicket of thorns to enter the palace and kiss the Sleeping Beauty back to life. ” This passage is ironic because she is explaining the little boy’s actions as if he is part of a fairy tale, right before the tragic end of the story.