"Final" Paragraph

Stoppard's quotation involving the meaning of tragedy is also supported by the short story "Once Upon a Time" in which Nadine Gordimer creates an innocent character who ends up unlucky. A young boy is created in this short story as too adolescent to understand the whole of reality. Gordimer shows the young boy's innocence when she writes, “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.”(235). The fact that this boy is pretending makes the outcome so much more tragic and himself much more innocent because he only wants to play a game and is not out to hurt anyone. He also wants to kiss the Sleeping Beauty making him a hero showing that he is only trying to follow his dream of becoming a hero. As the young boy continues on his adventure, it is cut short when Gordimer writes, “With the first fixing of its razor teeth in his knees and hands and head he screamed”(235). It truly is unlucky for him to have died this way because he is so unaware of the reality that he was just thrust into shown by his screaming. Because of this unlucky end for an innocent boy who was trying to do good, Stoppard’s essence of tragedy is reinforced yet again. Not only does the little boy reflect Stoppard essence of tragedy, but another pair of characters from the same short story show the other end of the spectrum.