Apartheid, Racism, and Property Theme Analysis

“Once Upon a Time” is set during apartheid, a system of racial segregation and discrimination that was the law in South Africa from 1948 until the early 1990s. The story shows how white South Africans benefit from and perpetuate white supremacy—even those like the (presumably white) narrator who are aware of the profound injustice of apartheid but nonetheless enjoy a better life than black South Africans. Gordimer focuses in particular on homeownership (the narrator, as well as the suburban husband and wife about whom she tells a story, own homes in segregated neighborhoods) to call attention to how property ownership—which was limited to white people starting in 1959—exacerbated inequality in apartheid South Africa. To Gordimer, segregated suburbs like the one the couple inhabit are an embodiment of colonialism, an attempt to consolidate white wealth through property ownership and to physically separate white South Africans from the black suffering on which their wealth is built. By showing how personal bigotry and structural segregation combine to perpetuate black suffering and white luxury, Gordimer condemns the racism at the heart of South African society.

The story’s most explicit racism comes from the white suburban family who are terrified of black South Africans and indifferent to their suffering. The couple worries frequently that the riots outside of the suburb—in an area where “people of another colour [are] quartered”—will bleed into their own neighborhood. The husband tries to make his wife feel better by assuring her that “these people” are not allowed into the suburb and that there are “police and soldiers and tear gas and guns to keep them away.” In all of this discussion, the couple shows a callous disregard for the suffering of those they’re keeping out, many of whom are jobless and surrounded by violence in their neighborhoods. Gordimer even notes that police are shooting schoolchildren in black parts of town. This contrast between the suffering of black neighborhoods and the luxurious lives of the white couple emphasizes the cruelty of the couple’s efforts to keep others out. Furthermore, Gordimer lampoons the couple’s inability to see that their fear of black South Africans is racist: on the gate outside the couple’s house hangs a warning sign featuring the silhouette of a masked robber whose skin color isn’t visible. This last detail, Gordimer writes ironically, “proved that the property owner was no racist”—but it’s obvious that the sign and the gate are aimed at black people alone. This highlights the white couple’s refusal to see the obvious truth that their actions and indifference towards black suffering are harmful and racist.

In addition to showing the white couple’s bigotry, Gordimer emphasizes the disastrous legacy of colonialism, demonstrating how structural racism is at the heart of apartheid. The story’s clearest evocation of colonialism comes in the narrator’s explanation of the mine under her house. Noting that indigenous black South Africans (she names the Chopi and Tsonga peoples) work the mines, the narrator says that these “migrant miners […] might [be] down there, under me in the earth […] or men might now be interred there in the most profound of tombs.” By invoking the perilous labor of indigenous miners, the narrator is calling the reader’s attention to the structural racism of South African society, in which black laborers do dangerous work for paltry wages to enrich white people, who own the country’s profitable industries. In this way, the narrator is implying that the source of white wealth in South Africa is the exploitation of black labor. The story’s focus on white homeownership (via the suburban couple and the narrator owning homes) further illuminates this structural racism. The narrator’s house is literally built on top of a mine, which metaphorically shows how the luxurious lives of white homeowners in South Africa are built on a foundation of black suffering and exploitation. However, when poor black South Africans come to the white suburban neighborhood begging for work or food and sleeping on the streets, the couple chooses to build higher walls, thereby doubling down on their exploitative lives while ignoring the suffering of black people from which they have benefited. This perpetuates the cruelty and inequality of colonialism, effectively punishing black people for their poverty, which white people caused in the first place.

To show just how far-reaching apartheid racism is, Gordimer depicts even the suburban couple’s black housekeeper perpetuating racist stereotypes and fearing other black people. Housemaids are only allowed into the suburbs as employees of white families, and it’s implied that these workers have higher status than the poorer black people who are rioting and unemployed. Thus, it is not surprising that over time, the couple’s “trusted housemaid” mimics the colonial mindset of the white family and develops a fear of the people outside of the suburb. After hearing of another housemaid being tied up and put into a cupboard during a burglary, the family’s housemaid insists that the couple install more security features like burglar bars and a new alarm. Then, when those “who [are] not trusted housemaids and gardeners [hang] about the suburb,” the couple’s housemaid dissuades the wife from bringing them food. This shows how racist, colonial laws placed people of color who live and work in between black and white spheres, encouraging them to sympathize with wealthy white citizens. However, it’s also possible that the housekeeper hasn’t so much internalized racism as she’s just aware that living in an unjust society breeds violence, and that in toeing the line between the black and white South African communities, she is directly in the line of fire.