✍️ Poetry

Once Upon a Time

by Gabriel Okara

★★★★★ MCQAnalysisEssay

Once upon a time, son, they used to laugh with their hearts and laugh with their eyes; but now they only laugh with their teeth, while their ice-block-cold eyes search behind my shadow. There was a time indeed they used to shake hands with their hearts; but that’s gone, son. Now they shake hands without hearts while their left hands search my empty pockets. …So I have learnt many things, son. I have learned to wear many faces like dresses — homeface, office face, street face, host face, cocktail face, with all their conforming smiles like a fixed portrait smile. …But believe me, son. I want to be what I used to be when I was like you. I want to unlearn all these muting things. Most of all, I want to relearn how to laugh, for my laugh in the mirror shows only my teeth like a snake’s bare fangs! So show me, son, how to laugh; show me how I used to laugh and smile once upon a time when I was like you.

Text shown in abridged stanzas for study; read the full poem in the anthology (p. 7).

What happens — the sense

A father speaks to his young son. He remembers a time when people were sincere — they laughed and shook hands “with their hearts”. Now, he says, people are false: they “laugh with their teeth” only, their eyes are cold, and even as they shake hands they are sizing you up and searching your “empty pockets”. The father admits he too has learned this falseness — he wears “many faces” like clothes for different occasions, with practised, meaningless smiles.

By the end he is ashamed: his own laugh in the mirror looks like “a snake’s bare fangs.” He begs his son to teach him how to laugh sincerely again, as he once did — “once upon a time when I was like you.”

Themes

Loss of innocence and sincerity. Growing up — and “fitting in” to adult society — has cost the speaker his honest, open self.
Hypocrisy of “civilised” society. Politeness has become hollow: “Feel at home,” “Come again,” are said without meaning.
The child as teacher. The father, the adult, asks the child to teach him — innocence is wiser than experience.
Longing to return / regret. The whole poem is a wish to “unlearn” and “relearn”, to go back to a truer way of being.
Superficiality and Deceitfulness. People project warmth they do not feel — eyes are cold while teeth smile; handshakes search empty pockets; invitations mean their opposite. The entire social surface is a performance with no feeling underneath. The speaker himself has been corrupted into this same deceitfulness: his own face in the mirror has become a false mask.
Cultural crisis due to westernisation. Gabriel Okara (Nigerian) wrote this poem as a critique of post-colonial African society absorbing Western social manners — the cocktail party, the “homeface/office face” routine, the fixed professional smile — at the cost of authentic human warmth. The poem mourns that indigenous sincerity (“laugh with their hearts”) has been replaced by imported, hollow Western social codes. This theme connects the personal crisis of the poem to a broader cultural one: a whole generation has lost its genuine self to a borrowed way of being.

Tone & mood

Tender but sad — a gentle, confessional voice talking to a beloved child, full of regret and a longing for lost sincerity. The repeated “son” keeps it intimate and loving even as the content is bitter.

Form & poetic devices

Form	Free verse (no fixed rhyme or metre) — a natural, speaking voice; a dramatic monologue addressed to “son”.
Title / framing	“Once upon a time” is a fairy-tale opening, used ironically: the lost age of sincerity feels like a story that can’t come back.
Contrast	“heart” vs “teeth”; sincere past vs false present — the organising idea of the whole poem.
Metaphor	”wear many faces” — false identities put on and off; “homeface, office face…” are masks for each role.
Imagery	”ice-block-cold eyes”, “empty pockets”, “fixed portrait smile” — cold, hollow, frozen insincerity.
Simile	”wear many faces like dresses” — the word “like” makes this a simile: false identities are compared directly to clothes, changed for each occasion. Also: laugh “like a snake’s bare fangs” — self-disgust; his own smile is now threatening and false.
Irony	”Feel at home”, “Come again” — phrases that sound warm and welcoming, but in context are empty social formulas said without sincerity. The irony is that these invitations mean the opposite: people are indirectly signalling “do not come back”, hiding coldness behind polite words. This verbal irony exposes how false social conventions have replaced genuine human connection.
Repetition	”Once upon a time” — opens the poem and returns at the very end (“once upon a time when I was like you”), forming a circular structure; sincere childhood feels as distant and unreachable as a fairy tale. Also: “son”, “laugh”, “I want”, “show me” — emphasises longing and the loving appeal to the child.

⭐ Exam facts — remember these

Poet: Gabriel Okara (Nigerian). Form: free verse, dramatic monologue to his son.
Central contrast: laughing/shaking hands “with their hearts” (sincere past) vs “with their teeth” (false present).
Key images: “many faces like dresses” (masks/hypocrisy), “ice-block-cold eyes”, “snake’s bare fangs” (self-disgust simile).
“Once upon a time” = ironic fairy-tale framing for a lost age of sincerity.
Reversal at the end: the father asks the child to teach him — innocence over experience.

⚠ Common student mistakes

Treating it as a poem about a literal childhood story — “once upon a time” is ironic, about lost sincerity.
Saying the father admires modern society. He criticises it and is ashamed he has joined it.
Naming devices without effect. Don’t just write “metaphor” — say what “faces like dresses” shows (changeable, false identities).
Missing the hopeful turn: the ending is a plea to relearn sincerity, not pure despair.

✅ Quick Check

Answer these to lock in the key points. Wrong answers are saved to your Mistake Notebook.

📝 Exam Practice

Real Section A format — write your answer first, then reveal the model answer.

"They used to laugh with their hearts
and laugh with their eyes:
but now they only laugh with their teeth,
while their ice-block-cold eyes
search behind my shadow."

✎ Practice drill Practice question

(a) Name the poem and the poet. (01 mark)
(b) What is the difference between laughing "with their hearts and eyes" and laughing "with their teeth"? (01 mark)
(c) What does "ice-block-cold eyes" suggest about the people described? (01 mark)
(d) Comment on the theme of authenticity versus pretence in these lines. (02 marks)

"So I have learned many things, son.
I have learned to wear many faces
like dresses — homeface,
officeface, streetface, partyface"

✎ Practice drill Practice question

(a) Name the poem and the poet. (01 mark)
(b) Who is speaking, and to whom? (01 mark)
(c) What does the simile "like dresses" suggest about the faces the speaker wears? (01 mark)
(d) How do these lines prepare the reader for the speaker's final request to his son? (02 marks)

"I want to be what I used to be
when I was like you. I want
to unlearn all these muting things."

✓ Real past paper G.C.E. O/L 2025/2026 — Section A I(ii)

(a) From which poem are these lines taken? Name the poet. (01 mark)
(b) Who is referred to as "you" in this excerpt? (01 mark)
(c) What do you understand by "muting things" according to the poem? (01 mark)
(d) What is the attitude of the speaker towards "muting things"? (02 marks)

📝 Practice more