Cry the beloved Country

767 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: South Africa today (essays

In South Africa there have been many injustices in the past years but the real tragedy is that people realize that these problems are there but has not tried to eliminate them. In Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton the tribe has been broken through the actions of mass amounts of people but when it comes to making the future better only a few individuals step up to the plate.
In all parts of South Africa people carry out there daily lives without faith, custom, or purpose. When Kumalo says “Cry the beloved country these things are not yet to an end” (105) he expresses his cry for the broken tribe, the law, and the traditions that are gone. The tribe has been ripped apart for so long that you need to weep, weep for the men that has dies and for how the women and children behave.
At the beginning of the novel Stephen had received a letter urging him to come to Johannesburg because his sister, Gertude was sick. Gertude had previously left Ndotsheni to find a husband but ended up becoming consumed by the lifestyle of Johannesburg. When arriving to Johannesburg, Stephen realized that Gertude wasn’t physically sick but morally corrupt. She sells liquor, lives with prostitutes, and has a child with no husband. Kumalo tries to help Gertude by letting her come back to Ndotsheni to live with him and his wife, even going as far as buying new clothes for her and her son representing a new start. While living with Mrs. Lithebe, Gertude confides in her by voicing her doubts and says that she’s a weak woman. Even with all the help Gertude slips back into her old ways leaving in the middle of the night but her son and “The red dress and the white turban was still there”(205).
As the tribe continues to stay broken, crime and racial tension ...

... middle of paper ...

... come back with James to Ndotsheni and gets Zulu lessons from Kumalo. In Africa there is a language barrier in which the whites can’t read Zulu and with the boys interest in Zulu shows hope for the future tribe. After a few lessons the boy tells Kumalo that he would be leaving in which he tells the boy “Something bright will go out of Ndotsheni” (283). The boy’s willingness to educate himself shows the hope for a better future.
Cry, the Beloved Country shows the broken down trotted tribe that rises to come together. During the transition, the weak mind would be left and not make it to the finish line such as Gertude and Absalom but others would. Men were afraid of each other, of salvation, but when the brains, the voice, and the heart come together in South Africa then the tribe can be mended. The book ends with a sunrise representing a new start to a new attitude.

Show More
Related

  • History Of Black Wall Street ' Little Africa '

    1122 Words  | 3 Pages

    The history of this tragic story begins a little before the actual beginning of “Little Africa”. This story begins after slavery has supposedly ended, but a whole new era of cruelty, inhuman, and unfair events have taken place, after the awful institution of slavery when many of my people were taken from their home, beaten, raped, slaughter and dehumanized and were treated no better than livestock, than with the respect they deserved as fellow man. This story begins when the Jim Crow laws were put into place to segregate the whites from the blacks.

    Read More

  • The Corrosive Nature of Racial Discrimination in Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country

    678 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Cry, the Beloved Country” by Alan Paton is a true example of how corrupt racial discrimination can make people. The struggle of power between the native black people and the intruding white people is essential to the setting of the story. The situation that natives in South Africa are facing is somewhat equivalent to what happened to the Native Americans when the British settled in America.

    Read More

  • Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton

    1137 Words  | 3 Pages

    Cry the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton is a novel inspired by the industrial revolution. Paton describes in detail the conditions in which the Africans were living during this time period, 1946. This story tells about a Zulu pastor who goes into the city in search of his son and siblings who left in search of a better life. The pastor sees this immense city where a ruling white group is oppressing the black population. This novel is more than just a story, but it depicts the effects imperialism and the Industrial Revolution had on South Africa. Although the government has intervened to protect the people, some of these effects are still present in our societies.

    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

  • Themes In Cry, The Beloved Country By Alan Paton

    1209 Words  | 3 Pages

    “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.

    Read More

  • Cry the Beloved Country

    606 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Cry for the broken tribe, for the law and the custom is gone. Cry, the beloved country, these things are not yet at an end (Paton, 105).” In Cry, the Beloved Country, it is 1946 and the land reserved for blacks in Ndotsheni, a part of South Africa, is drying up. In the novel written by Alan Paton, young men and women begin to leave Ndotsheni for the new city Johannesburg. One of those gone is John Kumalo, a businessman in Johannesburg and younger brother of Stephen Kumalo, a reverend in Ndotsheni. Stephen and John Kumalo differ in their regards for family, religion, and corruption.

    Read More

  • Injustices Exposed in Alan Paton's Cry the Beloved Country

    1006 Words  | 3 Pages

    Cry the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton, is the story of the two fictional characters, Stephen Kumalo and James Jarvis, who lose their sons in South Africa in 1948. In his story, Alan Paton used the George Hegel's Dialect of thesis, antithesis, synthesis, in order to expose social injustices in a microcosm of South Africa that correlate to the macrocosm of the issues faced by the entire country and what must be done to fix these injustices. Paton subdivided his story into three books. The first of these books, depicts the Journey of Stephen Kumalo, to try and restore his family, is a cry against injustice. The second book focused mainly on James Jarvis’s plight to understand his deceased son, depicts the yearning for justice. While the final book displays the restoration and repair of the injustices derived from the yearning for justice.

    Read More

  • Security and Independence in Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country

    1441 Words  | 3 Pages

    One great paradox of human life is the balance between security and independence. Many people would say that they are self-sustaining, that they can make it on their own. The question is not always whether or not they can make it, but what the cost of their security is. Some value their personal freedom more than their security, for others it is the opposite. In “Cry, the Beloved Country” characters often wrestle with this issue. Every character responds uniquely according to their situation. The results are meaningful and give information about who they really are and what they value.

    Read More

  • National Geographic's Apartheid’s Children: Two Contrasting Worlds

    1024 Words  | 3 Pages

    Before viewing the National Geographic Documentary “Apartheid’s Children”, I did not realize that even after the government was black majority ruled, numerous blacks are still living in deficiency. Subsequent to watching this short but evocative documentary, I now understand the immense gap between several blacks and how events in their lives have entirely changed their circumstances, and how this associates with creating their identity.

    Read More

  • Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton

    739 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Comparison of Paton's Cry, The Beloved Country and Conrad's Heart of Darkness

    1344 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Cry, the beloved country, Alan Paton tells the story of his journey across Africa, his experiences with the colonized Africa, and the destruction of the beautiful, pre-colonialism native land of Africa. Heart of Darkness also tells the story of a man and his experiences with colonialism, but a man who comes from a different time period and a very different background than Alan Paton’s Stephen Kumalo. Although, both Joseph Conrad and Alan Paton portray the colonized areas as very negative, death filled, and sinful places, it is when one analyzes the descriptions of the native lands of Africa that the authors reasons for their disapproval of colonialism are truly revealed. When comparing the writing styles of Alan Paton and Joseph Conrad, their descriptions of the land and the people in both works reveal their different attitudes and views towards colonialism. While Paton and Conrad ultimately oppose colonialism, Paton is concerned with the disappearance of African tribal tradition, whereas Conrad is concerned with the perceived corruption of the white colonists.

    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

  • Cry , the Beloved Country: Post-Colonial Literary Theory

    569 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The True Meaning of Cry, the Beloved Country

    1425 Words  | 3 Pages

    Many debates have been sparked by Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country.  Even the essence of the book's title examines South Africa and declares the presence of the inner conflict of its citizens. The importance and meaning of the title of Cry, the Beloved Country is visible in Paton's efforts to link the reader to forthcoming ideas in the novel, Paton's description of South Africa's problems, and Paton's prayer for the solution of South Africa's difficulties with race and racial oppression.

    Read More

  • South Africa

    990 Words  | 2 Pages

    South Africa is a nation with a wonderful and varied culture. This country has been called “The Rainbow Nation”, a name that reflects the diversity of such amazing place. The different ethnic and cultural groups of the South Africa do, however, appreciate their own beliefs and customs. Many of these traditions, besides African culture, are influenced by European and Western heritage. The complex and diverse population of the country has made a strong impact to the various cultures. There are forty-five million people; about thirty million are black, five million white, three million coloured and one million Indians. The black population has a large number of rural people living in poverty. It is among these inhabitants that cultural customs are preserve the most.

    Read More

More about Cry the beloved Country

Open Document