The anti-apartheid movement of the late 1980s serves as the political backdrop for the action that takes place in “Once Upon a Time.” In the years preceding the end of apartheid in South Africa, both peaceful and violent demonstrations spread throughout the townships, the impoverished neighborhoods where Black South Africans lived. Townships were located outside major cities such as Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Cape Town. Gordimer can begin her fairy tale “In a house, in a suburb, in a city,” without specifying the location because the urban planning of all major South African cities was the same. Gordimer’s story also portrays the township uprisings indirectly, through the eyes of white South Africans who fear changes that the protestors demand. By treating both her main characters and their imagined antagonists as generalized archetypes, Gordimer suggests that this story, or similar ones, may have played out all over South Africa at this time.

The main method of enforcing apartheid was South Africa’s pass laws. White government officials segregated both townships and public transportation because limiting the movement of Black South Africans helped ensure the dominance of the ruling white minority. Legislation required Black and “Coloured” South Africans to carry internal passports and to show their passports if they ventured outside of the townships or attempted to use public transportation.