Once Upon A Time By Nadine Gordimer

Kofi Annan, the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations once stated,“We may have different religions, different languages, different colored skin, but we all belong to one human race.” Since the beginning of time, tension results when an individual does not want to live within the confines of their culture or society. Citizens struggle to be a part their community when other residents are intolerant of their way of thinking. Mavericks who feel restrained by tradition and rules are eventually compelled to act.

Published in 1989, Nadine Gordimer's work titled "Once Upon a Time" is a symbolic story about the end of white supremacy followed by the birth of South African society. She explains how suburban areas used to be segregated, and

different racial groups were forced into separate regions. Gordimer carves out a story where a family conforms with the ideas of the Apartheid and struggles to protect themselves, only to unintentionally kill their son. The narrator states that there are riots, “but these were outside the city, where people of another color were quartered… One evening, the boy dragged a ladder to the wall, the shining coiled tunnel was just wide enough for his little body to creep in, and with the first fixing of its razor- teeth in his knees and hands and head he screamed and struggled deeper into its tangle.…” (Gordimer 1). The family was sent into a concluding craze to guard their belongings and happiness which ended in their son’s death, clearly showing that no avail came from the misfortunes of the Apartheid.
In 1995, when President Bill Clinton gave his “Oklahoma Bombing Memorial Speech” to an audience of thousands, he described the anguishes from the families of those who had been lost and wounded in a domestic terrorist attack. Timothy McVeigh, sought revenge against the federal government for its handling of the 1993 Waco siege, as well as for the 1992 Ruby Ridge incident. McVeigh’s bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma resulted in 168 deaths. President Clinton had sympathized with the American people and stated, “We pledge to do all we can to help you heal the injured, to rebuild this city, and to bring to justice those who did this evil” (Clinton 1). McVeigh hoped to inspire a revolt against the federal government in an attack against his own nation.
In 1953, Ray Bradbury published the novel Fahrenheit 451. It is based on a future American society where books are outlawed and "firemen" burn any that are found. Within the beginning of this novel, the main character Guy Montag was a dedicated firemen, one that took pride in his job. Eventually, his curiosity begins to get the best of him, and he steals books which is against the nation’s norms. In an effort to protect the new person he has turned into, Montag kills his boss as he tries to burn down his house. In the text Bradbury writes, “And then Beatty was a shrieking blaze, a jumping, sprawling, gibbering mannikin, no longer human or known, all writhing flame on the lawn as Montag shot one continuous pulse of liquid fire on him” (Bradbury 49). Montag rebels by defiantly reading books and acting out against his society’s standards.
Although there is one human race, citizens who do not conform to traditional views stand out from locals who have different ideals. There is a constant struggle for for these residents to fit in, so they feel the need to act out against their society.