Comparing Power in Cry, The Beloved Country and The Women of Brewster Place

True Power in Cry, the Beloved County, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, and The Women of Brewster Place

The world sets out to disappoint man. There exists a constant battle in which man has to prove himself by rising up against inevitable pain and destruction. When the struggle we face will end is unknown to us, and remains a mystery. The question of why we are forced to struggle even goes unanswered. Yet to overcome everything trying to disempower man, all we need is love. Through endless possibilities we can both love and use this power to create something more, something so great it enables us to transcend those who try to disempower. Even though this love exists in so many forms and pervades every moment of our lives, the challenge remains to find it. In Cry, the Beloved County by Alan Paton, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Solzhenitsyn, and The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor, the characters depict our endless search for love and the power it carries with it.

Perhaps it is the innocence that lures man to them, perhaps it is even their helplessness that compels man to reach out to them, but whatever the cause, people so often find their love within children. Being with a child eliminates all other worries and pains of the world. Paton says as much when he declares, "Now God be thanked that there is a beloved one who can lift up the heart in suffering, that one can play with a child in the face of such misery" (Paton 62). Though Kumalo experiences continuing hardships on his trip to Johannesburg, nothing brings him greater pleasure than when he plays with the child of his daughter. "When he plays with the child, there is something that comes out of him so that he is changed" (Paton 118). Expressed even further is the love created with a child of one's own. Luciela Turner, of Women of Brewster Place, looks at her daughter as her only source of love that has ever come without pain, and the child brings her so much pleasure. "The playful laughter of her daughter, heard more often now, brought a sort of redemption," Naylor says (96).