Once Upon A Time

     Oh the irony in Once Upon a Time by Nadine Gordimer.  It is ironic that the wire that was suppose to protect the boy ends up hurting him in the end.  Instead of making it over the wall, "the bleeding mass of the little boy was hacked out of the security coil"(236).  The parents motives of trying to keep their family safe ended up backfiring on them.  This adds to the theme that too much protection can be dangerous.  The parents were too busy thinking of all the different ways to protect their child when they should have thought about what he would think of what they were doing.  Also, they never watched him anyway.  If they really wanted to protect their son then they should not have left him alone without any supervision.  Their protection was in a way not protecting the child.  It added to the danger that the boy could get into, and in the end, he got into it.