– Noun
– The attitude or actions of a person that protects people and gives them what they need but does not give them any responsibility or freedom.
– http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/paternalistic
– “Then you can scratch the condenscending paternalistic terminology. It’s a woman, pal. Woman.”
– The second speaker is refering to women when he makes that comment.
–
– Noun
– An offensive word or name that is used as a way of abusing or insutling someone.
– http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/epithet
– “Don’t you think you should transcend those puritancial judgemental moralistic epithets?”
– The second speaker is getting the first speaker angry by keep questioning and re-telling the original story.
PassĂ© – Adjective
Definition: no longer fashionable or popular
Source:Â http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pass%C3%A9
Found in:Â There Was Once by Margaret Atwood
Quote: “Forest? Forest is passĂ©, I mean, I’ve had it with all this wilderness stuff. It’s not a right image of our society, today. Let’s have some urban for a change.” (1st page, 3rd line)
Throughout this short story, the narrator tries to breakdown the stereotypical fairytale of Cinderella. Back then maybe this might have been the case where the typical Cinderella story might have taken place in a forest but in today’s society people in poverty are known to be in urban areas. This is a way of the narrator’s attempts to demolish how stereotypical we can be.
There Was Once by Margaret Atwood is a retell of the Cinderella. There are two speakers in this story. First which is the story teller and second who keeps correcting the first. The whole story was never told because the second speaker kept interrupting the first speaker. She was trying to tell a story of a girl who lived with her step mother and what not. The second speaker rudely kept interrupting her and forced her to make changes in the way she told her story. She made her use different words simply because the words the first speaker used were too mainstream. First the second speaker didn’t like the word poor. Clearly the two speakers had their own definitions of poor and which were very different from each other. Then she was forced not to use the word beautiful, and when she described in details how the girl looked like she was unable to do that as well. Overweight and front teeth sticking out apparently encouraged anorexia. To a reader when each word is question it either means that the second speaker wants to hear the story their way or doesn.t want to hear the story at all. As far as elements of fiction this piece never got to the plot because of her being questioned to every word she said. The characters have to different personalities. The first speaker who wants to tell her story and get straight to the point. Where the second character is rude and wants to hear what she wants to hear. The story teller seemed to get annoyed of the second speaker’s changes. Nothing was good enough for her to hear.
The story “There Was Once” by Margaret Atwood is mainly about a disagreement between two speakers, speaker A and speaker B , respectfully. Speaker A is the storyteller and speaker B is the listener, however you’ll soon find out he does more then listen. To his best ability, speaker A tries to retell the story of Cinderella, but speaker B keeps on interrupting his story to throw his two cents in and makes corrections to what he sees fit. At first I thought speaker B was interrupting on purpose just to be annoying, but I was wrong. He was trying to send us a subliminal message. He felt that the story was too fictional and lacked specific detail, so he wanted to add more reality to it.
In the first paragraph speaker A talks about how there was once a poor girl who lived with her wicked stepmother in a house in the suberbs. Speaker B doesn’t agree with the word choosing, he believes since she lived in a house, socio-economically she wasn’t poor. Speakers B continues to show the same pattern throughout the story , correcting Speaker A. The point he’s trying to make is that you can’t be too naive when reading a story. You can’t believe every single detail thrown at you just because you can’t prove that it’s not wrong or just because it fits in to the storyline so you don’t want to doubt it. I even make this mistake sometimes when I watch a movie or read a book. I will ignore little things that don’t make sense just so I can continue and enjoy the rest of the story. I know some people who just focus on every single word and detail , just like speaker A, but in my opinion you can’t enjoy a story if you question everything that doesn’t make sense to you. I believe it’s better to accept everything the way it is and with an open mind and a little imagination you’ll be able to enjoy every movie or story you come across.
I love the way this reading was written. “There was once” is a great example of society and its history, the way many of us were taught to look at life unknowingly. Many of these folk tales are told in subliminal messages, they paint a non visible picture in our minds, evil ” stepmothers” wicked “step sisters” .. the golden “prize”; a  Prince charming; the l helpless miserable “good girl”. I have come to realize how these characters and traditional stories have manipulated the way I imagined life to be.
The second person in the reading was against  any common  clichĂ©, I loved it. I believe that this reading opens up the minds of the reader.  We must question all that we read. We must ask our selves why a wicked step-mom; a step-mom can be loving, caring supportive and many other great things, The second voice was basically questioning the first voice, The second voice was showing that he was tired of all the negative’s that reflected on the woman in these tales. The negative female characters in these stories  seem to have been adapted as a norm for decades.
We must question everything we read, many of these tales tells a story about ourselves and the way society has been built around these readings. Our children and grandchildren’s children will also hear these tales, we want to be able to allow them to question and shape a better world, a great way of doing so is finding the root of reason. Why ?. Could a simple fictional story actually have a secret mission?, Could the tale of Cinderella have a connection with the gap  between woman ? were woman sublimely taught not to value and care for each other?. Why is the price and marriage the happy ending, are a woman’s life not more meaningful?, Is marriage our biggest agenda?, can it possibly be a woman’s greatest achievement?. I think not, we must apply the tactics of the second voice in everything find the story behind the “story”.
Puritanical-(adjective)
Definition: very strict in moral or religious matters, often excessively so; rigidly austere.
Second page, line 22 of “There once was” by Margaret Atwood. -“Another thing. Good and wicked. Don’t you think you should transcend those puritanical judgmental moralistic epithets? I mean, so much of that is conditioning isn’t it?
This means that the first speaker should not be thinking in such a moralistic way.
“There once was” by Margret Atwood was basically an  unfinished story about Cinderella.  I can see how Atwood’s story can relate to cinderella, but it turns out to be a lot different. As the story begun, I thought there would actually be a story told. When I read the second sentence from the story, I found it very odd because that is when I realized that this was a story with two different speaker, with opposite views. As the first speaker would try and tell the story, the second speaker would interrupt and want to change something. The first speaker would actually fix up the beginning of the story to satisfy the second speaker. I don’t really think that the first speaker actually cared about the details of the story, but you can tell that the second speaker did. It was actually pretty interesting what the second speaker had to say about the story because it made sense. Even though what the second speaker was doing was creating a new story all the things that he pointed out were interesting.
The second speaker would tell the first speaker things like, why the girl had to be poor, or beautiful, or have to poor, when in fact she shouldn’t really be considered poor. I don’t really think that the first speaker was actually interested in what the second person had to say. Unless it was a group effort into writing the story. As the story begun they had a sentence written, but by the end of the story, they only had one word. The second speaker had to be from today because of the way he spoke about peoples appearances and anorexia because people make a bigger deal out of these things today.  By the middle of the story, we learn that the first speaker is telling the story to the second speaker. Although it doesn’t really sound like the second speaker cares to listen
When I first read “There once was”, I didn’t understand what the author Margaret Atwood what trying to explain. I first initially thought the story what about society and how individuals complain for everything. I come to this conclusion because the author Margaret questions everything and finds a fault in everything . After reading the story over and over I come to an understanding that Atwood is critically analyzing the classic children’s story Cinderella.
She points out many subliminal messages that children or even adults may not look closely at. For instance she brought up the issue of weight and appearances. In the real story Cinderella beauty played a big part, the author give off the idea of being beautiful is the only way to meet Prince Charming. Atwood on the other hand questions that idea when she says “there was once a girl who was a little overweight and whose front teeth stuck out.”
Atwood points out the idea of good and bad in the story. Cinderella’s stepmother was considered a bad person. She questions what if it was her stepfather would he be considered a bad person? This criticism stuck out the most too me because as a women we are always given a negative image, whether it double standards or just trying to be as good as the guys. I agree with all of Margaret’s criticisms. Some may believe she is taking the innocents out of a classic tale but her ideas are defiantly something to think about .
This is barley a story, this is a monologue. There is one person reciting a story that is very familiar (Cinderella). Then there is another person rejecting every word the first person says. For clarification purposes we can call the first person who is reading the story A and the second person who is correcting the story B. B is very conscious of every word A says. B makes sure that every word said in the story A is reciting will not be taken the wrong way. In the beginning of the monologue B seams to be correcting A for sake of relating to times now-a-days. For example A says the poor girl lived in the forest and B corrected forest to suburbs. An urban change. B is changing the story to match reality. As the monologue unfolds B starts to get politically correct. It seams as if B does not want anyone to take what A is saying in the wrong way. B wants there to be no misread words that can cause any problems. B is very conscious of what the reader will think and how the reader will understand A’s message. The monologue ends with “What’s this was, once? Enough of the dead past. Tell me about now.” This sums up the whole debate between A and B. I think this is a very interesting monologue to read because it makes me think about how conscious writers are with their word choices these days. There is a lot of thinking and re thinking that goes into writing to ensure you do not offend your audience. If this was the case when a lot of classic books and movies were made a lot of stories would not be possible or they would not be the same. If it were up to me I would keep everything the way it is.
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