What does the plot graph look like for Nadine Gordimer, Once Upon a Time

A plot graph is composed of the following: exposition, rising action, conflict, climax, falling action, and conclusion.

It is drawn in the shape of a mountain with the exposition at the bottom left, the conflict at the peak of the mountain, and the conclusion at the bottom right of the mountain.

In Nadine Gordimer's Once Upon a Time, the exposition is at the beginning, and includes the section where the writer talks about writing her story, along with the beginning of the story where the neighborhood and family are described. So that information goes at the bottom left of the mountain.

On the slope up to the top, the rising action is where the family continually adds new security features to their house, as their fear of the outside world grows.

The climax (or the peak of the mountain) is when the little boy hears the bedtime story and decides to climb over the wall, where he is stuck in the barbed wire and has his body mutilated.

At the right side and bottom right of the mountain, the falling action and conclusion are basically grouped together. That is because in this story, the climax occurs in the very last paragraph. The conclusion is when the family takes the body of the little boy back into the house.