Nothing is ever perfect. All systems have their flaws. Sometimes more flaws than any good. That was the way it was in South Africa during the apartheid, people had to break away from the family and their tradition just to get food and a little money. The corrupt government spread ideas of inequality and injustice, forcing people to live in fear of their lives. In his protest novel, Cry, the Beloved Country, Alan Paton uses the interaction of characters to illustrate the negative effects of apartheid on both the natives in South Africa and the white oppressors. He uses the subject fear to demonstrate the everlasting ideas of the world's corrupt system of justice and what effects it can have on family and religion.
A corrupt system, such as apartheid, can jumpstart a cycle of inequality and injustice that will roam the country and haunt the families it breaks up. Steven Kumalo's search for Absalom was based on inequalities and racism, which systematically created his troubles. Absalom shot Jarvis out of fear of what he might do to him and his two friends since he caught them in the house robbing him: "And again the tears in the eyes. Who knows if he weeps for the girl he has deserted? Who knows if he weeps for a promise broken
Or does he weep for himself alone, to be let be, to be let alone, to be free from the merciless rain of questions, why, why, why, when he knows not why (99)". Black south Africans are treated different from the white South Africans. Absalom weeps because he is scared of the questions and what their answers could be. He doesn't know why he shot Jarvis because he knew it was the wrong thing to do, but there was nothing else to do. He was scared that Jarvis would get them into trouble; he had no idea that Jarvis was a man who fought for native rights. He is scared of himself and scared that since he killed a man, which in his and his family's mind is the worst thing one could do, what more he could do to other people, including his father, and his pregnant girlfriend. The natives were only allowed to own a small portion of the land as opposed to the white South Africans whose population was miniscule to the natives but they own a much larger quantity of land.
The world today can sometimes be a hard place to live, or at least live in comfort. Whether it be through the fault of bullies, or an even more wide spread problem such as racism, it is nearly impossible to live a day in the world today and feel like it was only full of happiness and good times. Due to this widespread problem of racism, often times we tend to see authors go with the grain and ignore it, continuously writing as if nothing bad happens in the world. Fortunately, Claudia Rankine, is not one of these authors. Rankine manages to paint a vivid picture of a life of hardships in her lyric Citizen: An American Lyric. In this lyric Claudia Rankine shows that she truly has a very interesting and not commonly used approach to some literary
Michael MacDonald’S All Souls is a heart wrenching insider account of growing up in Old Country housing projects located in the south of Boston, also known as Southie to the locals. The memoir takes the reader deep inside the world of Southie through the eyes of MacDonald. MacDonald was one of 11 children to grow up and deal with the many tribulations of Southie, Boston. Southie is characterized by high levels of crime, racism, and violence; all things that fall under the category of social problem. Social problems can be defined as “societal induced conditions that harms any segment of the population. Social problems are also related to acts and conditions that violate the norms and values found in society” (Long). The social problems that are present in Southie are the very reasons why the living conditions are so bad as well as why Southie is considered one of the poorest towns in Boston. Macdonald’s along with his family have to overcome the presence of crime, racism, and violence in order to survive in the town they consider the best place in the world.
She leaves behind her family in order to pursue what she believes is the greater good. She leaves behind a family of nine, living in extreme poverty, to live with her biological father—who runs out on her at a young age to satisfy his need to feel big and important, simply based on anxieties about the hardships around him. Moody comes from a highly difficult and stressful situation, but she stands as the only hope for her starving family and leaves them behind for a life of scholarship and opportunity. This memoir leaves the reader with a sense of guilt for Moody’s decisions, and one may even argue that these decisions happened in vain, as the movement never made a massive impact on race relations. Unfortunately for Moody, she would continue to witness atrocious hate crimes up until the year of her
The themes that are addressed in the novel, including the psychological effects of racism on Black people and the denial of white people to address the issue of race reinforce the idea that psychological inferiority, just like the white and Black identity, are creations that perpetuate a society that will benefit one group and work to the destroy the other. Without the moral consciousness and accountability of the rulers of America’s society, the relationship of African Americans to the United States will continue to be spiritually, psychologically, and physically
With all three of these aspects of racism in consideration, race was a prevalent theme in the book that couldn’t escape the reader’s consciousness. Whether it was through showing the division of the communities, or through the feelings that each race held about the other race, the book portrays the history of racism in America.
Fear and Redemption in Cry the Beloved Country & nbsp; Fear grips all black societies and is widespread not only among black people but also white people. An unborn child will inherit this fear and will be deprived of loving and relishing his country because the greater he loves his country, the greater will be his pain. Paton shows us this throughout this book, but at the same time he also offers deliverance from this pain. This, I believe, is the greater purpose of this book. & nbsp; When Stephen goes to Johannesburg, he has a childlike fear for "the great city" Johannesburg. Khumalo's fears about his family are exactly the same as every other black person in South Africa.
Frank, America’s mother, Browning and the whole system are responsible for all the negative impact on America. First, America’s mother forced America to suffer by deserting him with his brothers. Second, Browning deliberately uses America for the purposes of achieving his immoral ambitions. Finally, the system is guilty for backing away from America when he needed the system the most. The novel shows the reader that how America lost his ability to trust someone ever again and how after a lot of struggles and pain, how he was able to gain that belief to ever trust someone once again. After reading this novel, people should acknowledge the fact that, these are individuals who have gone through a lot of pain either emotionally or mentally and it is not easy for them to recover and be able to live a normal life once again. So in order to avoid turning someone into America, people should always there prior attention to these people and help them to be able to come out of their fears and to be able to live happily once
In 1930’s and 1940’s South Africa, many people suffered through traumatic events, whether it be a robbery, a loss of livelihood, a beating, or the ultimate tragedy, the loss of a loved one. In his novel Cry, the Beloved Country, Alan Paton makes sure that this is not left out of his true-to-life, albeit fictional, account of life in South Africa. James Jarvis is the recipient of this tragedy in the novel. His son, Arthur Jarvis, is murdered in his home by Absalom Kumalo during a botched robbery attempt. This sudden loss breaks Jarvis’ heart and sends him reeling. He goes to Johannesburg for the trial and ends up realizing that he really didn’t know his son at all. Reading his son’s writings causes him to have a moral conversion, and he begins his new life when he returns to Ndotsheni. Even though James Jarvis is a man of few words, he has much to say after his son’s death and he speaks through his actions.
These three authors tell of the division of the American race. They tell of the struggles of the black in a white people’s world; however, America has become a melting pot of the World and the “black” and “white” people that we know are slowly becoming a dying breed. There is so much that we could all learn from each other. All people bleed red no matter what the color of their skin; what a wonderful place this America and world could be if mankind would live together in peace and harmony.
Cry, the Beloved Country is such a controversial novel that people tend to forget the true meaning and message being presented. Paton’s aim in writing the novel was to present and create awareness of the ongoing conflict within South Africa through his unbiased and objective view. The importance of the story lies within the title, which sheds light on South Africa’s slowly crumbling society and land, for it is the citizens and the land itself which are “crying” for their beloved country as it collapses under the pressures of racism, broken tribes and native exploitation.
The book was made into a movie starring James Earl Jones and Richard Harris. The book takes you to South Africa, where the land itself is the essence of a man. It as if the mountains, soaring high above the clouds, are the high moments in life, and the valleys are those low and suffering times. Next, you will take a journey to a place called Johannesburg. While reading the pages, the reader begins to envision Johannesburg being a polluted, very unkind, and rushed city. The setting is more of an emotional setting than a physical setting. As I stated, it takes place in South Africa, 1946. This is a time where racial discrimination is at an all time high. The black community of this land is trying to break free from the white people, but having little success. It is this so called racism that is essential to the setting of the story. Without it, the book would not have as much of an impact as it does. This film, the second adaptation of the book, has little room for hatred or anger. Instead, its underlying tone is one of a profound grief that the title hints at. Taken as a whole, Paton's novel promotes healing and understanding, and it speaks as powerfully to audiences today as it did when it was first published, fifty years ago. The book ends with a tone of ...
Ernest Hemingway was a man who was intrigued by the complexity that love and war brought to intimate relationships. Not only was Hemingway intrigued by love and war, he once also lived it. During WWI Hemingway served as a Red Cross ambulance driver; after being seriously wounded he spent six months at the Red Cross hospital in Milan where he fell in love for the first time. Falling in love with the nurse also resulted in Hemingway’s first heartbreak. Hemingway was a “damned good looking man”, which allowed him to have plenty of relationships with women. Having been married four times to four different women also gives light as to why the relationships he writes about always fail in his stories. Although Hemingway never served as a soldier in war, as much as he wanted to, he knew that the burdens of war always resulted in a failed love. Ultimately, Hemingway uses the war to attack the romantic delusions individuals had prior to WWI to signify the affects war cast on romance.
The pacific journals of Adam Ewing have cruelty place everywhere in their society. The weak are suppressed, or even eaten. Slaves are treated as animals, and the color have little freedom to explore their dreams. All of these subjects are forms of cruelty. The one to cause it all is human society, desire, and power. Humans are the beast that rip each other up. No one can truly be happy like this, being treated as dirt, looked down upon, and being
Mbeki begins to explain, “Today we look at our world and realize South Africa has become a hugely damaged society. Its mining industry has founded on the destruction of peasant agriculture and the conversion of the male peasant farmer into a migrant worker. This devastated the African family in South Africa. Also, for several centuries parts of South Africa depended on slavery. The consequences of slavery are still with us today, particularly among the coloured
Bibliography w/4 sources Cry , the Beloved Country by Alan Paton is a perfect example of post-colonial literature. South Africa is a colonized country, which is, in many ways, still living under oppression. Though no longer living under apartheid, the indigenous Africans are treated as a minority, as they were when Paton wrote the book. This novel provides the political view of the author in both subtle and evident ways. Looking at the skeleton of the novel, it is extremely evident that relationship of the colonized vs. colonizers, in this case the blacks vs. the whites, rules the plot. Every character’s race is provided and has association with his/her place in life. A black man kills a white man, therefore that black man must die. A black umfundisi lives in a valley of desolation, while a white farmer dwells above on a rich plot of land. White men are even taken to court for the simple gesture of giving a black man a ride. This is not a subtle point, the reader is immediately stricken by the diversities in the lives of the South Africans.