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How does racism affect the characters of cry, the beloved country, alan paton
Literary analysis of cry the beloved country
Literary analysis of cry the beloved country
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Cry, The Beloved Country-Alan Paton-Response Daniel Renfrey
Setting/Context
Cry, The Beloved Country is set in South Africa during the late 1940s, just after World War II, and at the beginning of Apartheid, which was when racial discrimination was in South Africa was in full bore. The three most important and interesting settings in the novel are; Ndotsheni, a remote village in which the protagonist, Reverend Stephen Kumalo and his wife live, Johannesburg, where Stephen goes to find his son and sister, and the farm of High Place.
Ndotsheni
The first couple chapters of the novel are set in Ndotsheni. The book starts off by describing the beautiful valley where Ndotsheni is situated. However, the land in Ndotsheni is corroding. As Ndotsheni is primarily a farming village, the poor soil and drought can cause some crops such as maize to “grow barely to the height of a man.” Paton describes the green hills of Ndotsheni slowly turning into something a lot less healthy and beautiful. They fall to the valley below, and falling, change their nature. For they grow red and bare. Too many cattle feed upon the grass, and too many fires have burned it.” This quotation from Paton conveys the effects that the drought is having on the village.
Because the soil is so poor and the village is slightly overpopulated, more and more young people are moving to Johannesburg in order to find a job. As a result, the village is filled predominantly with older people and lacks life. There is one church available in Ndotsheni (before James Jarvis builds a new one at the end of the novel), and even though it is old and run down, it does the job, like many people of the older population of the village.
Despite all of this negativi...
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... that hard to follow and the descriptions of the villages and Johannesburg are very deep. This descriptive writing creates beautiful and not so beautiful imagery of South Africa and in turn helps the reader to understand the themes and message of the novel. The careful characterisation used by Paton also helps the readers to develop their own ideas about South Africa in this time and to connect to the characters emotionally.
Style of narration
The novel is narrated by a general voice, which shows that it is written in third person.
“They walked till they came to Claremont and Kumalo was shocked by its shabbiness and dirtiness, and the closeness of the houses and the filth in the streets.”
Worlds such as “they” and the narrator’s naming of “Kumalo” found in these direct quotations from the novel are examples of third person writing.
Word Count: 3,300 words
Similar to first person is the limited omniscient point of view in that the narrator
First Person is when the author chooses one character to tell the story. You will often see the words, “I,” and “me,” through out. The narrator will most likely be in the middle of the action, or telling the story from a past perspective.
The novel starts of by an entire first chapter giving a thorough and symbolic description of setting in South Africa and Stephen Kumalo’s village of Ixopo. This detailed portrayal not only gives you great view of the land, it creates the mood and atmosphere that will carry throughout the entire book. The story starts with Stephen Kumalo receiving a letter from Johannesburg, where he has lost mush of his family. The letter was from Father Vincent alerting Stephen that his son, Absalom, has been found. Stephen rushes to Johannesburg and arrives to a very harsh and racist city. His search began with the finding of his sister, Gertrude. That search was completed quickly. Gertrude had changed much ...
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.
In 1930’s and 1940’s South Africa, many people suffered through traumatic events, whether it be a robbery, a loss of livelihood, a beating, or the ultimate tragedy, the loss of a loved one. In his novel Cry, the Beloved Country, Alan Paton makes sure that this is not left out of his true-to-life, albeit fictional, account of life in South Africa. James Jarvis is the recipient of this tragedy in the novel. His son, Arthur Jarvis, is murdered in his home by Absalom Kumalo during a botched robbery attempt. This sudden loss breaks Jarvis’ heart and sends him reeling. He goes to Johannesburg for the trial and ends up realizing that he really didn’t know his son at all. Reading his son’s writings causes him to have a moral conversion, and he begins his new life when he returns to Ndotsheni. Even though James Jarvis is a man of few words, he has much to say after his son’s death and he speaks through his actions.
The society of the small urban town called Ndotsheni, from which both Stephan and Author come, is based largely on the native African tribal system. This town also suffers from a drought that drives away the young men to work in the mines of Johannesburg. Johannesburg directly contradicts Ndotsheni with no tribal system and the brake down of the moral fibers of its people. Yet in Johannesburg there is also hope for the future and ideas that help lead to the restoration of Ndotsheni. During the time the story is set in Johannesburg the reader is introduced to two exceptionally different characters. The first is John Kumalo, the brother of Stephen Kumalo. He is a corrupt politician with the voice of a “lion,” but a week hart, who spoke about the injustices of the whites to the blacks and their need to revolt. The other an enlightened priest, Msimangu, who prayed for loving and restoration through coming to amends. Their influences help to shape Kumalo into a new person. Furthermore, throughout his story Paton stresses the idea of irresponsibility contradicted by individual responsibility. Eventually the idea of unified responsibility is shown to be the only manor by which South Africa can be saved.
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.
First of all the third person narrative is used in literature to present a narration from a completely neutral point of view. Common with most fictional entries, this narration style gives the author of a piece of writing an individual voice in the work he creates. Such an author does not just rely on what he /her characters say, he/she actively becomes instrumental to them actually saying or doing them.
character. The first person point of view is recognized by the words “I” or “we”, as seen on page
The story is told in the first person voice. The narrator is talking to one particular person; He refers to this character in the second person voice. “This is your
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.
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.
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.
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.
Through the creation of a parallel with the reader, an in-depth study of South Africa's difficulties, and a strong hope for the solution of racial segregation, one discovers the true meaning of Cry, the Beloved Country. One discovers Alan Paton's gift of expression through the telling of a man's epic journey through life, a man who finally discovers the meaning of love and loss, though he leaves nothing but footprints in the blowing sand. Each day, in every part of the world, one more person learns to live and to love, to feel from the bottom of one's heart for a land so beautiful that no words can describe the attraction for fear it will appear fickle. After all, "It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."