PASSAGE FROM "ONCE UPON A TIME"
             "The alarm was often answered-it seemed-by other burglar alarms, in other houses, that had been triggered by pet cats or nibbling mice. The alarms called to one another across the gardens in shrills and bleats and wails that everyone soon became accustomed to, so that the din roused the inhabitants of the suburb no more than the croak of frogs and musical grating of cicadas' legs."(254)
             In only two sentences Nadine Gordimer was able to relay to her audience the relevance of the story. This passage states the danger of focusing on the wrong things. By breaking the passage down into segments and looking at each one individually instead of as a whole, we are able to find more detail about the effects of misdirected focus.
             "The alarm was often answered-it seemed-by other burglar alarms, in other houses". This first segment starts us off in a general direction. The people no longer responded to the alarms, therefore, it was partially their own fault that the burglaries continued. Obviously their focus was off track. If they were in true danger they would continue to answer the alarms no matter how many false ones there were. This leads us to believe that maybe these upper-class people were exaggerating their problem.
             "[Alarms] that had been triggered by pet cats or nibbling mice". The alarms were not triggered by intruders. Essentially they had no purpose. The neighborhood was trying to protect itself from the wrong things.
             "The alarms called to one another". This symbolizes the chain-reaction effect of the neighborhood. As one house would take a new precaution all the other houses followed. It was as if the focus was redirected to a competition or "keeping up with the Jones'".
             "[Called] across the gardens in shrills and bleats and wails". The alarms did not just call to each other but did it in...