View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What pets does the family in the narrator's story have at home?

2. How are the people in the narrator's story said to be living at the start of her tale?

3. According to the narrator's tale, who were being shot by the police in the city?

4. Who is said to have offered a warning to the man and woman when they started their life together?

5. What woke the narrator in the night at the start of the story?

Short Essay Questions

1. At the start of "Once Upon a Time," what does the narrator say someone wrote and asked her to do, and how does she feel about this request?

2. Where does the story the narrator tells herself take palce and who is in the story?

3. Despite having the same fears of intruders as other people, what precautions does the narrator say she does not take in her home?

4. What were the man and woman unable to insure their house against, and why did the man tell his wife they need not worry about that?

5. What recent crimes does the narrator describe at the start of the story?

6. What does the narrator do when she is an able to fall back to sleep at the start of the story?

7. Why is the narrator unable to sleep at the start of the story?

8. What does the man have installed in their house to ease his wife's fears and what does the boy do with them?

9. How does the husband try to assuage his wife's fears when she worries people from the cities will tear off their warning sign and "open the gates and stream in" (26).

10. What fears did the man and woman's trusted housemaid begin to have, and what did they do in response to her fears?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write a detailed analysis of tone in Gordimer's “Once Upon a Time.” Include whether the tone changes or remains the same. If it changes, include details on when, why and whether this change is effective.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay analyzing Gordimer's commentary on race and class in “Once Upon a Time.” How is race and class important to the story? How does it affect the narrative? Use textual evidence to explain your analysis.

Essay Topic 3

Look at the structure of the story. How does the author use character and dialogue to drive the narrative?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 762 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample