“There Was Once” by Margaret Atwood is a retelling of a classic tale, without actually getting to the story. In the short story, the first speaker is reading the beginning of Cinderella, but not too much later is interrupted by the second speaker. The second speaker challenges the statements, such as economic status, culture, beauty, and even age of the girl. The second speaker introduces reality into the fairy tale. For example, the second speaker states that the setting is wrong, and an urban setting would be more fitting for societies image. Then argues if the girl was “poor” as the story is often portrayed her to be, it wouldn’t be anything to compared to the actual poor of the homeless that live in the subway stations. The first speaker complies and adds in the changes from the second speakers objections. When the second speaker criticizes the word beautiful to describe the girl, the first speaker responds by saying the girl is “a little overweight and whose front teeth stuck out” which makes the second speaker respond that it wasn’t nice to make fun. I believe this points out that the idea of the fairytale princess being anything else but beautiful is bizarre; if she isn’t, she must be overweight or have bad teeth. The second speaker states “description oppresses” and to omit it. This is important since beauty is relative to the individual and projects the notion that the image of the girl is what defines beauty, and if girls don’t look like that, they aren’t beautiful. I believe this short story serves to teach a lesson by constantly changing the defining characteristics of the story as often told. Atwood again uses the second speaker to protest the the description of the girl that feeds into “negative female images”. Finally she states that she doesn’t want to hear about the past and wants to talk about now. Atwood clearly challenges many of the notions that are commonly told in fairy tales by adding in a truthful depiction of her own, and that now is the time rather than the past.

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