The Breakdown And Rebuilding Of South African Society Within The Novel

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The Breakdown and Rebuilding of South African Society within the novel Cry, The Beloved Country

“...what God has not done for South Africa man must do.” (25)

In the novel Cry, The Beloved Country, written by Alan Paton, some major conflicts follow the story from beginning to end. Two of these conflicts would be as follows; the breakdown of the tribal community and the power hope and faith pocesses to rebuild broken relationships. Kumalo, as an indivigual, demostrates the power of this hope which mends the broken relationships of his friends and his fallen tribal community. Throughout the novel one aquires the perfect perspective about the hardships the natives went through as a society. Cry is a story about a Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and how he sets out to bring his family back to the community in which he resides. Kumalo, dealing with his family and congregation straying away from the church, does show the power of hope and faith and how it can rebuild broken relationships throughout the novel.
The tribal breakdown starts to show in book 1, with the land that the tribe must use and how the poeple of Ndotsheni have used up the natural resourses that used to lay within the community. The whites pushed the tribe out of where the community used to reside. The land was so rich that it was decribed as “ holy, being even as it came from the creator”(3). In the rural areas much of this decay came as a result of the tight confinned living areas that the blacks were forced to live upon. With such a mass population and such a small place to occupy it is only a matter of time before the land is no longer able to be farmed. The decay of the tribe was not only confined to the natural resources of the land but also resulted in a moral and physical decline of the entire population. In result of these conditions, many people left the tribe to go to Johannesburg where there’s a false hope for a new start in life. A hope that almost vanished when Komalo left. Without his strong moral belief in God the people where left with nothing but a decaying landscape. Even though it may seem as if all hope is lost for a decent life in the tribal community, it is within this time that the relationships between others are tested and drawn closer through the power of hope and faith.

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