Why was she addressed as this, when in an indirect way she could be labeled as cause for the gruesome end to the story? For truly, no fairy tale which follows the ground rules for happily-ever-after endings would conclude with such a scene - the young boy deeply entwined in the glittering jagged metal blades the husband and wife had attached to their towering wall, which that "wise old witch" not only directed should be built, but financed
And it was her fairy storybook, given as a present to the boy, which inspired him to play the part of the brave knight the next day, a role that would cost him his life. Yet as said before, she is ironically the only character that has been injected with color by the mere label she is assigned to, in comparison to the other black and white movements of the story. .
This is not to absolve the fairy tale parents of blame for the death of their son. For it was their obsession with security and providing their son with a protected environment that backfired on them. And indeed, does the word "irony" not carry within itself a sense of "backfired"? For while this fairy-tale family dined in fairy-tale happiness to the background music of the clanging of the alarm that was often triggered, a thief would break in, using that very same noise of the alarm to disguise the sounds. "Under cover of the electronic harpies" discourse intruders sawed the iron bars and broke into homes and sometimes paused audaciously to drink the whisky in the cabinets or patio bars" (Gordimer, 83). How laughably ironic! To think that the very same system the fairy-tale family installed to protect themselves not only distracted their targets, but allowed those very same targets to languish and enjoy a drink while stealing!.
But undoubtedly the greatest irony lies in the end of the story, the grisly demise of the young boy. For it was the barbarically designed metal dragon's teeth, the climax of the husband and wife's obsession with security, that was the final curtain.
