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. Paton is able to convey the idea of racial injustice and tension thoroughly throughout the novel as he writes about the tragedy of “Christian reconciliation” of the races in the face of almost unforgivable sin in which the whites treat the blacks unjustly and in return the blacks create chaos leaving both sides uneasy with one another. The whites push the natives down because they do no want to pay or educate them, for they fear “ a better-paid labor will also read more, think more, ask more, and will not be conten...
Daniel Keyes “Flowers for Algernon” exploits the change in relationships through the protagonist, Charlie Gordon. In the beginning of the novel Charlie is numb. His emotional and intellectual abilities have not developed. He believes his coworkers: Joe, Frank, and Gimpy are his true friends. Charlie Gordon does not feel intimacy physically or emotionally toward anyone and does not know much about his family. Relationships in Flowers for Algernon continue to manifest during the entire story line.
Cry, the Beloved Country is not another novel of common strife between man and his fellow. It is an entirely higher sense of what "brother against brother" is. Seemingly harmless characters like Stephen Kumalo and James Jarvis reveal the bigger picture of racism around the entire country. The effect of extreme poverty, the responsibility of the whites, made this story possible. The solution to the problem is portrayed through Absalom, his crime, and Arthur Jarvis. "'Bexxuse the white man has power, we too want power,' he said. 'But when a black man gets power, when he gets money, he is a great man if he is not corrupted [Paton 70].'" John Kumalo's words were rebuke against the white nation. The blacks had the same vices and values as the whites, yet the whites were more dominant. Why should it be that way? This story is the protest against that white domination.
“The tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that things are not mended again.” (Paton 56). Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton is a novel about life in South Africa after European countries came and colonized it. This novel shows the injustice, racism, and the depleting native life and culture of South Africa. Alan Paton presents to his readers the simple life in the country and then the urbanized life in the city. This novel is unique compared to others in how it includes intercalary chapters and sections throughout the whole novel. The intercalary writing style Alan Paton used, is able to show the reader the reality of the society, shape the tone of the story, and the main plot.
This is the fifteenth in a series of reviews of those pieces of written science fiction and fantasy which have won both the Hugo and Nebula awards. I had some reservations about including "Flowers for Algernon" in this series. It is an unusual case in that different versions of the story won different awards; the original short story, published in Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1959, won a 1960 Hugo, while the novel length expansion jointly won a 1966 Nebula. So to do it justice I would have to review two separately published versions of the story in one web page.
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.
The quote “But there is only one thing that has power completely, and that is love. Because when a man loves he seeks no power, therefore he has power,” as stated in the book in the book Cry the Beloved Country is not a true statement. No man has absolute power over any one thing. Although people seek power in many different places, there is only one true power, and that is God. There are many different levels of power in the world, but no level has complete power over anything else. Love is a power that God has given to man, but it cannot be controlled. Man doesn’t have power over love. He can search for it in many different places, but the power he is searching for remains in God.
Alan Paton who was a South African author and anti-apartheid activist wrote the novel Cry, the Beloved Country, The novel publication in 1948 was just before South Africa institutionalized racial segregation under Apartheid. Paton addresses the destruction of the tribal system in South Africa due to white colonization by using the novel as a medium to illustrate is damage. Throughout the novel we are exposed to the numerous problems resulting from the colonization. Communities are in collapse, the land is bare, people are starving, and families are broken. These fictional communities and people are based on the real problem Paton saw in South Africa. The concern of “native crime” by the whites is a result of changes in the social conditions. This change is the cause of the destruction of the tribal structure and the break from the traditional way of life. Colonization changes have lead to the problem of blacks leaving their communities to become a part of the whites’. The tribal system is destroyed by the lost of people to a white would, deterioration of morals and the lack of community.
The story takes place during a time of great unrest in South Africa between the native populace and the white people. The white people fear that they will soon be overrun by the much larger native population so they enact legislation that keeps the local salaries low and the working conditions very hard. This angers the natives and they threaten to strike and rebel. These threats endanger the well-being of all of South Africa as it is heavily dependent on the gold and silver that comes from the mines that are mined by the native inhabitants. Cry, The Beloved Country is the story of two men, Reverend Stephen Kumalo and civil rights activist James Jarvis, on their quest to find racial equality and fairness for the indigenous people of South Africa.
Cry, the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton, is the timeless novel about South Africa in the 1940’s. As powerful white men use the land for their own benefit, the tribal system of the African natives is broken down and replaced by poverty, homelessness, fear, and violence. A black priest, Stephen Kumalo, ventures to the great city of Johannesburg in search of his lost sister and son. His journey demonstrates the unhealthy lifestyle and mutinous atmosphere of the black people; yet he is the beholder of forgiveness, love, hope, and the restoration of a country overwhelmed with problems.
Cry, the Beloved Country, is set in the 1940's in the metropolis city of Johannesburg, and the quiet county village of Ndotsheni, within a nation full of racial prejudice, injustice, and inequality, which stains and fouls the land. Life within South Africa is always difficult inside the cities and racial injustice adds to the problem. The only work you could really find if you were a black person would to go to the mines or the factories. But the pay you receive is barely enough to keep yourself alive. Much less to support a family! So this leads many astray to a life a crime.
In Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton and in many of Nelson Mandela’s famous speeches, I have been able to notice many parallels between the messages Mandela always left his audience with, and the concluding chapters of the novel. Throughout the ending of the book, the characters are taught to accept the past, a key teaching of Mandela as well as look towards a brighter future- another main lesson Mandela shares with us. Overall, Nelson Mandela’s motivational and persuasive speeches highly relate to the final chapters of Paton’s Cry, The Beloved Country.
Cry, the Beloved Country In a country torn by segregation and hatred, one man seeks to rebuild his family and his tribe. Cry, the beloved country is a tale of forgiveness, generosity, and endurance. In the story, the main protagonist is helped by a number of characters. A South African man Stephen Kumalo loses his young son, but is still determined to improve the life of his people. In this black man's country, white man's law had broken the tribe, divided the people and corrupted the youth.
Throughout both Cry, The Beloved Country and Ways of Dying there are different uses of language to describe the landscape. While these works are set in separate time periods, the language used is similar and is not only due to the ideologies of South Africa but also due to the background of the authors. The language used to describe the landscape explains the differences in the way the tribal village’s lives compared to the city’s lives, as in Cry, The Beloved Country and Ways of Dying.
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
The author of Cry the Beloved Country Alan Stewart Paton was born in Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu Natal on January 11, 1903. He is the son to James Paton and Eunice Warder. Neither of his parents possessed top tier educations but his father James was deeply religious and used the Bible, and most importantly the Old Testament as a basis for knowledge and inspiration. This had a deeply profound impact on Alan as he was encouraged to pursue a quality education. Growing up Alan admired the works of Walter Scott, Charles Dickens and Rupert Brooke. Paton began his studies at the University of Natal. In 1935 Paton was selected as Principal of Diepkloof Reformatory where he served for thirteen years. This in particular experience had a tremendous impact on his political growth. During the 1940’s Paton travelled to Sweden, Norway and North America to study prisons and reformatories. Paton began writing his first, and perhaps Paton’s most prominent, novel Cry the Beloved Country in 1946 in Trondheim, Norway. He concluded the novel on Christmas Eve of the same year in San Francisco. In April 1988 Paton was diagnosed with inoperable throat cancer. He passed away in Durban on 12 April 1988, writing until his death.