 “There Was Once” by Margaret Atwood is both humorous and truthful. Throughout her story, Atwood criticizes the stereotypes fairytales ingrain in the minds of their young readers. These stereotypical fairytales are neither good nor beneficial for our youth, as reading this teaches them what they are expected to be like and look like once they become women.  When people tell stories, they are subconsciously biased, as they add in details that either resembles something they have done or their physical appearance. Within this story there are only two characters one, telling the story while the other one is listening.  There is a lot of tension between the two character, with the constant interruptions the tension just gets worse as the story continues.  In “There Was Once,” Atwood points out and criticizes stereotypes that are made in common day fairytales.  She accomplishes this by using a wide variety of diction and dialogue to stress importance of physical appearance and body stereotypes often found within children’s stories. Deleted line

Atwood uses stereotypical dialogue within her own story to prove her message.  The story starts out, “There was once a poor girl, as beautiful as she was good, who lived with her wicked stepmother in a house in the forest.” The words “poor girl” make readers think that the character comes from nothing and thus is nothing. Atwood then goes on to say the character is “as beautiful as she is good,” which implies that the girl’s outward appearance is the primary characteristic leading to her success, followed by intelligence and character. The sentence ends with “she lives with her wicked stepmother… in the forest,” which implies that she has a difficult relationship with her stepmother, making her more likely to be rebellious and not be “good” anymore. As the story continues, Atwood brings up the color of the girl. By addressing the character’s color, the storyteller is adding in his own racial bias, promoting his race as superior, which was quite common among fairytales, especially since fairytales were written in the conventional, racist society of eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe.

Atwood’s diction in her short story includes common words describing women, often found in other fairytales. Within the first sentence the girl is described using three different adjectives, which could be taken as a compliment or insult. By calling someone “poor,” one is describing him/her as a person who has nothing, and therefore is nothing. In today’s world more than half the population is considered “poor” or underprivileged, but many break free of this label and grow to be very successful. The discussion of the word beautiful is also brought up and one of the characters declares that word “beautiful” should be cut from the story because “women these days have to deal with too much intimidating physical role models as it is.” He later adds, “Can’t you make her, well, more average?” which brings up the question what makes a women average?  Does being beautiful make you better than someone that is just average looking?  When the word “beautiful” is changed to “average” in the story, the average girl then becomes “a little overweight and whose front teeth stuck out.” This creates the issue of women judging other women based on appearance. By creating the average person as overweight, the narrator is judging women based on size, a common issue in today’s society, which can lead to eating disorders, lower self-confidence, and other mental health issues that many women suffer from every day.  When the narrator of the story changes his words from “poor” to “middle-class” and “beautiful” to “average,” showcases how one words can greatly impact today’s youth, and how they judge themselves based on these model characters.

The structural components of this short story make the message clearer and easier to comprehend.  In “There Was Once” the sentences of the story are all fragmented, showing that the narrator cannot finish one line of his story before being interrupted and being asked to change the wording of something he had just said. With only two people in the short story, Atwood gives each of the characters their own line to help emphasizing on the constant interruptions occurring between the two characters. This is helpful because it helps keep each of their thoughts straight and the reader is less confused on who is trying to change what in the story that is being told. Throughout the short story the situation and location never change, but they are also never said, and this forces readers to question if the two characters are friends or random strangers. Because the structure of this story never gives the reader the background, the situations on how the characters have met change the tone of the story. For example, the interruptions could be in a friendly or professional manner, or could be a complete analysis and criticism. The structure of the story ends with a question, in which Atwood prompts readers to reflect on fairytales they have read, and consider if most of the stories they are familiar with have common stereotypical words.

By not knowing what happens at the end, not only are the readers unaware if there will ever be a story, but readers also do not see what happens after tension was built between the characters.  Despite the story’s humorous side, there is a constant theme of tension arising between the characters.  This tension comes from the annoyance one character gives to the other because of constant nit-picking during the retelling of a story. This tension, at its highest at the end of the short story, leaves readers waiting to see whether or not the character is going to crack, and tell the other that all he wants is to finish his story, regardless of his diction.  

In “There Was Once,” Atwood points out and criticizes common stereotypes of today. She accomplishes this by using a wide variety of diction and dialogue to stress importance of physical appearance and body stereotypes.  She chose the use of strong words like “poor,” “beautiful” and “good”, because they are all found in famous fairytales.  “There Was Once” is just one example of a fairytale that teaches children from a young age societal standards of looking beautiful, and subconsciously judges all, and thus teaches these younger readers to judge others who do not meet this perfect standard. 
