*Read with Clarity*

Hi, my name is Claire, and this is my blog "Clarity Reads." Here I will share with you my personal thoughts and opinions, hopefully with clarity, on different types of literature I encounter this year. So, let's write!

My favorite text I read over the summer, was "Once Upon a Time," by Nadine Gordimer. First, I found how Gordimer started the short story with a character in reality and then transitioned it into a fairytale, was so unique and really captivated me first and foremost as the story began. Throughout the "fairytale" I felt as if I was walking right beside the family down the street, looking at the different types of security systems. I love sensing as if I am now apart of the story, feeling their anxiety, and seeing their tense expressions. Another highlight for me, is the way Gordimer was able to secretively twist our expectations of a fairytale ending. She built up a false hope, with a family living "happily ever after" in a safe home, and then we are completely left in shock as the little boy, the innocent prince, the one who really never lived a fairytale, the one destined to save the princess and defeat the evil, is slayed by society's code of fear. We standby the fence in horror as fear consumes the people who tried so desperately to keep it out. My favorite line is, "So from every window and door in the house where they were living happily ever after they now saw the trees and sky through bars." I respect this line so much, it depicts for us the hell that they have created for themselves, they can't see the good anymore without looking at the bad and taking precautions first. They are so petrified by life, so afraid, they choose to hide themselves away, cower from the evil instead of conquering it like a prince, like how a "fairytale" ought to be.