Once Upon a Time

by

Nadine Gordimer

The Razor Wire Symbol Analysis

The Razor Wire Symbol Icon

The razor wire is symbolic of apartheid, which destroyed South African society by keeping different races apart. Apartheid is an Afrikaans word that literally means “aparthood” or “separateness,” so the razor wire—which is meant to violently separate the white family from black intruders—reflects the legal and military infrastructure of apartheid, which kept the races separate by force.

When the suburban husband and wife install the razor wire, they’ve explicitly chosen it for its violence: “Placed the length of walls, it consisted of a continuous coil of stiff and shining metal serrated into jagged blades, so that there would be no way of climbing over it and no way through its tunnel without getting entangled in its fangs. There would be no way out, only a struggle getting bloodier and bloodier, a deeper and sharper hooking and tearing of flesh.” This quote explicitly shows the violence that the couple envisions will keep poorer, black South Africans off their property—but it also foreshadows the ironic ending of the story, in which the couple’s own young son dies horrifically in this exact way. This suggests to readers that the collateral damage of apartheid isn’t one-directional: even though white people think they’ll only benefit from forced segregation, the razor wire cuts both ways, and the family ends up destroyed by it when their son dies. The razor wire can also be interpreted as a description of the logic of apartheid itself: the system of violently separating the races inevitably becomes, like the razor wire, “a struggle getting bloodier and bloodier, a deeper and sharper hooking and tearing of flesh.” It’s a horrible, violent system that, once in place, destroys everything around it.

It’s also worth noting that Gordimer consistently associates the razor wire—symbolic of apartheid—with evil. The suburban family chooses razor wire in the first place because it evokes a concentration camp—Gordimer uses that term—in its no-frills style. With this, Gordimer evokes the German Holocaust and also suggests that the family is imprisoning themselves with the razor wire, even as they think they’re keeping themselves safe. The name of the security company, Dragon’s Teeth, also evokes evil, hearkening to the Sleeping Beauty story that the wife tells her son as a bedtime story on the night before his death. In some versions of Sleeping Beauty, the evil fairy conjures a dragon alongside the thorns to keep the Prince from rescuing Sleeping Beauty. So, in Gordimer’s story, the family is the evil fairy, conjuring the thorns to create a malicious barrier that—in order to have a happy ending—has to come down. The metaphorical significance is that wealthy white people who benefit from black exploitation have conjured apartheid—in the way the evil fairy conjured the thorns—and, in order to have a just society, apartheid must be destroyed.

The Razor Wire Quotes in Once Upon a Time

The Once Upon a Time quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Razor Wire. 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:
Wealth Inequality and Fear Theme Icon
).
Once Upon a Time Quotes

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 […].

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Man / The Husband, The Woman / The Wife, The Little Boy / The Son
Related Symbols: The Razor Wire
Page Number: 26
Explanation and Analysis:

One evening, the mother read the little boy to sleep with a fairy story from the book the wise old witch had given him at Christmas. Next day 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: he 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.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Woman / The Wife, The Little Boy / The Son, The Husband’s Mother
Related Symbols: The Razor Wire
Page Number: 27
Explanation and Analysis:

[…] 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.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Man / The Husband, The Woman / The Wife, The Little Boy / The Son, The Housemaid, The Gardener
Related Symbols: The Razor Wire
Page Number: 28
Explanation and Analysis:
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The Razor Wire Symbol Timeline in Once Upon a Time

The timeline below shows where the symbol The Razor Wire appears in Once Upon a Time. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Once Upon a Time
...all the way up the length of the house. Each coil is spiked with jagged razor-sharp thorns , ensuring that anyone who tries to climb up the coils—or even climb out of... (full context)
Apartheid, Racism, and Property Theme Icon
Separation and the Illusion of Security Theme Icon
The next day, workmen from the Dragon’s Teeth security company install the razor wire on the house where the family is “living happily ever after.” Now wrapped in metal,... (full context)
Apartheid, Racism, and Property Theme Icon
Storytelling Theme Icon
...to get to Sleeping Beauty and awaken her with a kiss. Deciding that the new razor wire wall will be the perfect thicket of thorns, the little boy lugs a ladder over to... (full context)
Apartheid, Racism, and Property Theme Icon
Separation and the Illusion of Security Theme Icon
Immediately, the razor thorns dig into the little boy’s skin, and he screams in agony, inadvertently entangling himself deeper... (full context)
Wealth Inequality and Fear Theme Icon
Apartheid, Racism, and Property Theme Icon
Separation and the Illusion of Security Theme Icon
Storytelling Theme Icon
...the cat. The little boy’s body, now a “bleeding mass” is “hacked out” of the razor wire with several types of heavy equipment. The man, his wife, the housemaid, and gardener carry... (full context)