These two poems both deal with hypocrisy and a sense of self-reflection as the poets make

their characters have to look within themselves to find truth and honesty.

The phrase ‘A Stone’s Throw’ can refer to the physical action of throwing a stone or
you can throw stones verbally at a person (because sometimes words hurt). Either way both
can hurt and destroy a person physically or emotionally..
A stone’s throw is a story from the bible (John 8:1 – 11). The Pharisees caught this
woman in the act of committing the sin of fornication and are about to punish her by stoning
her. These acts of punishment were only done to the women caught in such business.
These men in the poem have fun by roughing her up, to them; they think that having
men’s hands on her body isn’t new to her so they don’t really care about how she felt.
But then this man steps in and ruins their fun, writing in the dust and makes them
look within themselves.

‘Once Upon A Time’ is usually how a fairytale is started, Fairytales are associated
with children who are innocent and unlike adults don’t have a problem showing their
emotions—there is mainly only black and white in their world, never really grey. The phrase
can also be associated with dreams or wished as the poet has this wish to be like a child
again, not afraid to show his emotions
Once Upon A Time follows this man relating to his son about the facades that people
portray in the presence of others. He explains that there were easier times when people
were real and could live peacefully with neighbours but now they just put on a show to
please each other, mouthing platitudes. He wishes to learn to laugh and smile and be real
again and so turns to his son, who is a part of him to help him.

In the Poem a stones throw, these men are accusing this woman of committing a
crime and to serve justice they themselves are about to commit another crime, the crime of
murder.
(Line 15)They think they’re better than this woman, justifying their actions as being
virtuous (righteous). In their mind they’ve already formed a judgment about this woman,
even though this is the first time they caught her but we can guess that this isn’t the first
time they’d committed this crime of murder (line 7 ‘They often are’ and line 11 ‘And not the
first time’). They look past the fact that they’re also sinning and feel it their right to serve this
justice (line 23-25). And they try to justify their actions of roughing her up by saying she’s
felt men’s hands greedy over her body, comparing the bruises they left to ‘love bites
compared to the hail of kisses of stones.’
There is also a sense of how unjust society was back then. They’d caught this
woman in the act but only the woman was condemned, the man was made to go free and
some of her accusers may have even been guilty of the same crime.
This suggests the double standard of society back then where women had fewer
rights and men had all the power.

In the poem Once upon a time, hypocrisy in this poem is shown in the social
behavior of the adults. Examples of this is shown in stanza 1 ‘they used to laugh with their
hearts and laugh with their eyes but now they only laugh with their teeth while ice-block-cold
eyes search behind my shadow.’
When you laugh with your eyes and hearts show that you share a person’s
happiness. This line is saying that people rarely do this anymore and they learned to hide
this by portraying different faces.
Stanza 4 – 5: This man has given into society’s ways because to show a sign of
emotion is weakness and an invitation to be taken advantage of. So he’s learnt to hide his
feelings and wear many faces and laugh with his teeth and shake hands without hearts and
say things with double meanings behind them like ‘goodbye’ when he really means ‘good-
riddance.’ He is mouthing platitudes and isn’t happy with what he’s become.

‘A Stone’s Throw’ sends the simple message: Don’t judge because no one is without sin; no
one is perfect.
‘Once Upon A Time’s message is that Society needs to change their ways.