Cry The Beloved Country Injustice

1561 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Evidence of racism in the beloved country

Activist, writer and former politician of Afghanistan Malalai Joya said, “I don’t fear death; I fear remaining silent in the face of injustice. I am young and I want to live. But I say to those that would eliminate my voice: I am ready, wherever and whenever you might strike. You can cut down the flower but nothing can stop the coming of the spring.” Joya’s powerful words are especially true, in today’s world and in Alan Paton’s novel Cry, the Beloved Country. When Stephen Kumalo’s sister becomes ill, he is driven away from his small village in South Africa, to go find her in Johannesburg. Kumalo’s brother, sister, and son have all left in search for a better life and since they have not contacted him nor returned and it is on this journey …show more content…

Paton argues that many of the prejudices that are found both the novel and modern society have been brought on by inequality and injustice. The author uses land as a platform to further articulate issues that have been brought on by the racial inequity between the whites and blacks in South Africa. “The grass is rich and matted, you cannot see the soil. It holds the rain and the mist, and they seep into the ground, feeding the streams in every kloof. It is well-tended, and not too many cattle feed upon it; not too many fires burn it. For it keeps men, guards men, cares for men. Destroy it and man is destroyed” (4). Paton then offers the reader another piece of land to consider, “Down in the valleys women scratch the soil that is left and the maize hardly reaches the height of a man. The valleys of old men and old women, of mothers and children. The more men are away, the young men and girls are away. The solid cannot keep them anymore” (4). By including these two very different pieces of land, Paton is able to describe to the reader the somewhat

Show More
Related

  • Analysis of Octavia E. Butler's Kindred

    1346 Words  | 3 Pages

    From the novel, it can then be concluded that issues that may seem to have disappeared from the world still thrive no matter the period of time. There is still some sort of oppression that takes place even if not necessarily by one race over another. Slavery, racism and gender abuses are still very much a part of the modern world. No matter how they seem to be removed from the world, there is still a little part of them that thrives within the very fabric of society.

    Read More

  • The House Behind the Cedars by Charles W. Chesnutt

    991 Words  | 2 Pages

    The author distinguishes white people as privileged and respectful compared to mulattos and blacks. In the racial society, white people have the right to get any high-class position in a job or live in any place. In the story, all white characters are noble such as Judge Straight lawyer, Doctor Green, business-man George, and former slaveholder Mrs. Tryon. Moreover, the author also states the racial distinction of whites on mulattos. For example, when Dr. Green talks to Tryon, “‘The niggers,’., ‘are getting mighty trifling since they’ve been freed.

    Read More

  • Fear and Redemption in Cry the Beloved Country

    553 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Oppression in Cry Freedom Cry, the Beloved Country

    582 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Cry, the Beloved Country, every character involved goes through severe suffering and it leads to change. Kumalo goes through tremendous suffering, with the death of his son. He has to face it, and begin to understand the many problems in the lives of the black population in South Africa. He leaves Johannesburg  with a new and improved view on the changes taking in place in the South Africa that he used to know. We see Kumalo’s change after he returns to Ndotsheni. “Kumalo began to pray regularly in his church for the restoration of Ndotsheni. But he knew that was not enough. Somewhere down here upon the earth men must come together, think something, do something”(Paton 263). He now realizes that praying isn’t enough, that he has to work toward making South Africa a better place.

    Read More

  • Inevitability of Change Revealed in Cry, the Beloved Country

    1142 Words  | 3 Pages

    Things grow old and die.  Change is inevitable:  a candle will eventually burn out, trees will fall to the ground, and mountains will crumble to the sea.  This inescapable process is clearly illustrated by the character Stephen Kumalo in the book Cry, the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton.  The Kumalo seen in the beginning of the book is a completely different person from what he is in the end.  He is initially very kind and caring, but by the end of the book, he is a far less naïve person, one who is able to lie even to his own brother.  The events that transpire and the changes they cause in the protagonist, Stephen Kumalo, clearly show that Cry, the Beloved Country is a book concerned with the effect external events can have on a man caught in the middle of them.

    Read More

  • The Biblical Message of Cry, the Beloved Country

    1835 Words  | 4 Pages

    Alan Paton's book, "Cry, the Beloved Country", is about agitation and turmoil of both whites and blacks over the white segregation policy called apartheid. The book describes how understanding between whites and blacks can end mutual fear and aggression, and bring reform and hope to a small community of Ndotcheni as well as to South Africa as a whole. The language of the book reflects the Bible; furthermore, several characters and episodes are reminiscent of stories from the New Testament and teachings of Christ. Thus, Alan Paton, as a reformer and the author of "Cry, the Beloved Country", gives the people of South Africa a new, modern Bible, where he, like Christ, teaches to "love thy brother as yourself" in order to help whites and blacks overcome the fear and misunderstanding of each other.

    Read More

  • Cry the Beloved Country

    662 Words  | 2 Pages

    Against the backdrop of South Africa’s racial and cultural problems, Alan Paton uses Biblical references as a way to preserve his faith for the struggling country. By using Biblical references in his novel, one can see that Alan Paton was a religious man who hoped that there would be change in his country. Through Cry, the Beloved Country Paton teaches the idea of love thy brother as yourself, as Christ did, in an attempt to show the importance of ending racial injustice through the characters of Arthur Jarvis, James Jarvis, Stephen Kumalo and Absalom.

    Read More

  • Doing Gender: Challenges of Lyndall and Em in Story of an African Farm

    1260 Words  | 3 Pages

    Younge, Chantal. "Challenging Victorian Ideologies of Gender, The Problems of Contradiction in Olive Schreiner’s The Story of an African Farm." Edith Cowan University. 24 June 1991. 20 February 2014. 2-36.

    Read More

  • Nadine Gordimer on South Africa

    1799 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the twentieth century alone, the world has witnessed oppression in many places, like the South African apartheid, which literally means “apartness” (Omond 11). Nadine Gordimer, an esteemed author and South African native, has lived to see the injustice and conflict her country has experienced during apartheid rule, which lasted just under a half-century. Most of her literary work throughout the decades of apartheid oppression united under the banner of freedom for the victims of apartheid. Her books speaking on the dangers and horrors of apartheid, as well as a call for its dismantling earned her a Nobel Peace Prize for literature in 1991. One of her short stories, “Once upon a Time,” published in 1989, creatively depicted many issues that people both black and white face in apartheid South Africa. In a time where there was constant political struggle, internal turmoil, deadly riots, and harsh segregation and oppression in her country, Gordimer used this short story to depict the reality of these atrocities in the guise of a children’s story by communicating the dangers of self-destructive fear and oppression presented in the ironies of the aptly titled “Once upon a Time.”

    Read More

  • Racism Exposed in Cry, the Beloved Country

    1107 Words  | 3 Pages

    Racism Exposed in Cry, the Beloved Country. The purpose of Cry, the Beloved Country, is to awaken the population of South Africa to the racism that is slowly disintegrating the society and its people. The. Alan Paton designs his work to express his views on the injustices and racial hatred that plagues South Africa, in an attempt to bring about change and.

    Read More

  • New Criticism of Cry, the Beloved Country

    999 Words  | 2 Pages

    Cry, the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton can be effectively analyzed using the theory of New Criticism. When beginning to look at the text one must remember not to any attempt to look at the author’s relationship to the work, which is called "intentional fallacy" or make any attempt to look at the reader’s response to the work, which is called the "affective fallacy." First, the central theme of the book must be recognized. In this book the central thematic issue is separation and segregation, that there will always be major problems in society when race or skin color segregates people. This central theme can be seen in every place the characters travel and also in their daily activities. Next, the tone of the book must be identified. The tone throughout the book can be identified as hopeful and also fearful. The balancing tones of hopeful and fearful help balance the central theme. There is a sense that human beings are capable of change and thus one day all people will become equal. No matter how badly things may be, the tone implies that there is still great hope. The hopeful tone implies that even though segregation and separation is a grim and depressing, there is hope for the future because, if a couple people are capable of change, so is a whole country. The fearful tone implies that South African’s are afraid of what has happened in their country and what may happen. Fear can be seen everywhere, in the land, actions of the people, and they speech of people. These balancing tones are continued throughout the book and serves to balance the outlining themes with the central theme.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Hughes's You Hated Spain

    1106 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hughes illustrates the woman as fearful of Spain and emphasises the distance between the woman and her husband. Hughes uses personal pronouns and imagery to convey this. Hughes describes how “...the African Black edges to everything, frightened you.” The noun “edges” is premodified by “African” and “Black”. “African” provokes ideas of foreign, mysterious and uncivilised. “Black” connotes death, darkness, mysterious and evil. In the 1950s, Africa was seen as a wild and exotic continent. These images contrast starkly with Plath’s upbringing in an enclosed and civilised America. The alliteration of “edges” and “everything” is used to convey how she cannot escape Spain as her fear is everywhere. The repetition of “frightened you” reinforces the strong sense of miscommunication; Hughes is un...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Weep Not Child

    930 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Weep Not, Child” by Ngugi Wa Thiongo’o tells a complicated story of the people of Kenya after the Second World War. The simple emotions of the characters are universal and immetiadely relatable, ranging from a childlike enthusiasm for education and simple yearning to learn to women’s inexhaustible ability to cause men ceaseless exasperation. However these simple and sharable emotions are refracted through the complicated and distorted lens of the last years of British colonialism. Through Colonionalism, Kenya became a prison of a home, a land where whites lived over the steep hills in the greener, more fertile valley, and dreams lived over the mountains and impassable sea. Where the weight of the world and its worst wrongs could weigh on the minds of the men and women living in state that suffers constantly, where they sweat and toil under a scorching African sun and the suffocating, segregating mentality of the foreign white man.

    Read More

  • The Gospel In South Africa

    1116 Words  | 3 Pages

    The first few months on the eastern border of the Cape Coloney, which had been allocated for thes settelers brought bitter disillusionment, that stood in stark contrast to their high hopes of coming to South Africa. The land given them by the British government of the Cape was unsuitable for agriculture, and their living conditions were appalling. The unnamed man who escorted the groups to their territory would always end his tour of their land by saying, “Gentlemen, when you go out to plough never leave your guns behind.” with that he would get on his horse and be off. This didn’t make sense to these settlers, but what they didn’t know was that the British government had decided to bring them hear, not to grow them in prosperity, but to use them as a buffer zone between the hostile and aggravated Xhosa tribes and the Cape Colony. Few managed to stay after the first few months in the area, and for those that did it was a difficult time. Everywhere you ...

    Read More

  • Racism: Nelson Mandela And Martin Luther King Jr.

    709 Words  | 2 Pages

    From the different continents, Mandela is ready for die while looking for the dream of a society where the people get to free about their sharing emotions and feelings without any priority of black and white. While on the different continent, King was also putting his effort for the same dream of a free society in 1968 (STRAZIUSO, 2014).

    Read More

More about Cry The Beloved Country Injustice

Open Document