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The Narrator
One of the protagonists of the second story, the man is the woman’s husband and the little boy’s father. Though both the man and his wife are preoccupied with their material possessions, the man takes this to a greater extreme. Much of the story centers around his efforts to protect the family’s possessions from outsiders—who, significantly, are poor black people oppressed under apartheid—like building a higher wall in the garden, installing electronically controlled gates, putting up threatening signs, and, eventually, outfitting the exterior of the house with lethal razor coils. He frames these actions as him graciously appeasing and protecting his fearful wife (who worries that the riots taking place outside of the city will eventually infiltrate their city and suburb), but it’s clear that the man fears for his own safety, too. While his wife nonetheless feels badly for the beggars outside the gates of their house and wants to feed them, the man is adamant that the beggars are criminals “looking for their chance” and that by giving them food, the woman would only be “encouraging them” to keep begging or somehow make them more likely to rob the family’s house. The husband’s mother echoes this sentiment throughout the story, fueling her son’s deep distrust toward outsiders. In the end, though, the man’s efforts to protect the family backfire in a moment of grim irony when his young son gets caught in the vicious razor-wire wall and dies. With this, the story makes the point that walling people off from one another—whether it’s physically though things like security systems or figuratively though racial labels—leads not to greater security but to devastating damage on all sides.
The Man / The Husband Quotes in Once Upon a Time
The Once Upon a Time quotes below are all either spoken by The Man / The Husband or refer to The Man / The Husband. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Once Upon a Time
Quotes
In a house, in a suburb, in a city, there were a man and his wife who loved each other very much and were living happily ever after. They had a little boy, and they loved him very much. They had a cat and a dog that the little boy loved very much. They had a car and a caravan trailer for holidays, and a swimming pool which was fenced so that the little boy and his playmates would not fall in and drown. They had a housemaid who was absolutely trustworthy and an itinerant gardener who was highly recommended by the neighbours.
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They were […] subscribed to the local Neighbourhood Watch, which supplied them with a plaque for their gates lettered YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED over the silhouette of a would-be intruder. He was masked; it could not be said if he was black or white, and therefore proved the property owner was no racist.
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The wife could never see anyone go hungry. She sent the trusted housemaid out with bread and tea, but the trusted housemaid said these were loafers and tsotsis, who would come and tie her up and shut her in a cupboard. The husband said, She’s right. Take heed of her advice. You only encourage them with your bread and tea. They are looking for their chance…
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When the man and wife and little boy took the pet dog for its walk round the neighbourhood streets they no longer paused to admire this show of roses or that perfect lawn; these were hidden behind an array of different varieties of security fences, walls and devices. […] While the little boy and the pet dog raced ahead, the husband and wife found themselves comparing the possible effectiveness of each style against its appearance […].
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[…] the alarm set up wailing against the screams while 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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The Man / The Husband Quotes in Once Upon a Time
The Once Upon a Time quotes below are all either spoken by The Man / The Husband or refer to The Man / The Husband. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Once Upon a Time
Quotes
In a house, in a suburb, in a city, there were a man and his wife who loved each other very much and were living happily ever after. They had a little boy, and they loved him very much. They had a cat and a dog that the little boy loved very much. They had a car and a caravan trailer for holidays, and a swimming pool which was fenced so that the little boy and his playmates would not fall in and drown. They had a housemaid who was absolutely trustworthy and an itinerant gardener who was highly recommended by the neighbours.
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Explanation and Analysis:
They were […] subscribed to the local Neighbourhood Watch, which supplied them with a plaque for their gates lettered YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED over the silhouette of a would-be intruder. He was masked; it could not be said if he was black or white, and therefore proved the property owner was no racist.
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The wife could never see anyone go hungry. She sent the trusted housemaid out with bread and tea, but the trusted housemaid said these were loafers and tsotsis, who would come and tie her up and shut her in a cupboard. The husband said, She’s right. Take heed of her advice. You only encourage them with your bread and tea. They are looking for their chance…
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When the man and wife and little boy took the pet dog for its walk round the neighbourhood streets they no longer paused to admire this show of roses or that perfect lawn; these were hidden behind an array of different varieties of security fences, walls and devices. […] While the little boy and the pet dog raced ahead, the husband and wife found themselves comparing the possible effectiveness of each style against its appearance […].
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[…] the alarm set up wailing against the screams while 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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