Religion is Hope Religion, to most people of the world, is the only saving grace in their life, because religion is the equalizer among peoples. In the eyes of God, it does not matter if his followers are black, white, destitute, affluent, Christian, or other they are just people to God; now to receive salvation or not is another matter. In Cry, the Beloved Country, Paton makes it clear that religion is hope. Religion gives the people a sense of salvation, redemption, or purpose, and salvation being the leading factor in Christianity, this is very important. Salvation is the deliverance from sin and consequence, and in the novel, salvation is everything to a people who have nothing. Religion is important to the story, because of Christian …show more content…
So, with faith that God can change their lives outcomes, the Africans believe God is a guiding force. Paton reflects in this insight when Kumalo hears the heavens say, “Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, these things will I do unto you, and not forsake you” (297). When the voice cries out this statement, it is to make sure the people of South Africa feel reassured, because it specifically says that God will not “forsake” his people. When the voice says “forsake”, it means that God will not abandon the people. It is a measure of faith to trust in God and the words that are being spoken are ones of guidance. Guidance is what the Africans need, as it is their comfort that the lives they live will get better. But, this guidance the God will provide, abides by faith. Without faith how can the Africans trust the fact that a being whom they never seen before can change the outcome of these tragedies. When the voice says “my people” it is for comfort, because when the voice says that, it gives the Africans a sense of relation to this higher being. Which leads to this sense of guidance, because God would not “forsake” his own “people”. So, the guidance itself is the faith these people have, or being a Christian and following the structure set up by Christianity. This guidance, or faith, is their hope and
The Day of Mourning Protest, held in Sydney’s Australian Hall on the 26th of January, 1938, was an event organised by the Aborigines Progressive Organisation (APO) in a call for Aboriginal civil rights. It was held on the symbolic sesquicentenary of the British landing at Sydney Cove, as the day represented 150 years of Aboriginal suffering under the Whitemen. All “Aborigines and Persons of Aboriginal Blood” were invited to attend (APO, 1938 in BGGS, 2017, pg. 23).
The short story, “Good Country People”, by Flannery O’Connor, was built on the elements of both irony and foreshadowing. Throughout the story, the most ironic aspect was the phrase: “good country people” because after analyzing each individual character, all of them were uniquely flawed in their own way. In addition every character’s name was uniquely crafted to either foreshadow future behavior or ironically give the character a deeper meaning as a whole. The main characters, Hulga and Manley were both ironically portrayed as someone they are not until their true characteristics were revealed at the very end when they were alone together.
No one likes to be told how to live. In the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, missionaries came to Africa to teach the natives a new way of life, Christianity. The natives had lived one way their entire life, and enacted their beliefs whole-heartedly. European missionaries wanted to convert them from these ways. Each group of people had difficulties communicating with each other; this caused a type of ignorance towards the other.
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.
Imagine a group of foreign people invading your home, disavowing all your beliefs, and attempting to convert you to a religion you have never heard of. This was the reality for thousands and thousands of African people when many Europeans commenced the Scramble for Africa during the period of New Imperialism. A great fiction novel written by Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, highlights the responses to missionaries by African people. The African natives responded to the presence of white missionaries with submission to their desires, strategic responses to counteract them, and with the most disruptive response of violence.
Theoretically, the Bible states that God is always present alongside his people. “Teach them to obey everything that I have taught you, and I will be with you always, even until the end of this age.” Matthew 28:20. In the novel, Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton, conveys a message that God’s presence is both acknowledged and ignored by the characters and a message to “love thy brother as yourself” (Matthew 19:19) through forgiveness in spite of of skin color.
The American Renaissance introduced an individualistic approach to viewing society and human nature that focused on equality and the inherent goodness of all mankind. The period ushered in the beginning of widespread movements toward race and gender equality. Out of Sentimental Romanticism came several very successful female writers who used emotional appeals to relate the plights of women to readers. The Transcendentalists who held a philosophical understanding of equality based on human nature rather than characteristics of individuals, asserted that all people are equal by nature, yet didn’t particularly concern themselves with inequality of women. In thought, the Dark Romantics shared the same belief in equality as the other groups of Romantics.
The personal insight and experience Zaru brings to the article provides an insightful perspective into the subject of oppression and liberation. The author states her argument clearly, but with obvious presuppositions deriving from her life as a Quaker (Zaru 123), thus making her argument slightly confusing at times. For example, as a Quaker, Zaru calls for justice, peace, and nonviolence in all situations, but fails to account for how justice should be sought, and simply acknowledges that a tension exists between peace and justice (135). Additionally, Zaru paints a relatively bleak picture of Old Testament accounts, even claiming that “the God of that portion of the biblical account is the God of people’s consciousness and perception rather than the God who really is” (125). This claim proves incredibly bold and seems to suggest inconsistency between the God of the Old Testament and the New Testament, a claim quite abrasive to those who, like myself, view the Bible as authoritative. Additionally, throughout the article, the author read her own experience into several Biblical accounts (Zaru 127), a practice that can provide clarity into one’s own experience, but should carefully avoid presentism. Despite these few critiques, Zaru offer incredible insight and perspective into the life of someone often viewed as “unchosen” and oppressed due to such views. In her
Ayn Rand authored Anthem about 20 years following the occurrences of the Russian Revolution in 1917. In addition, the misdoings and ills of the Soviet regime under the leadership of Josef Stalin contributed in influencing Rand’s insight of the significance of collectivism. The USSR shared a common belief that Communism, which can be explained as an extreme side of socialism, would assist the citizens by collectivizing numerous aspects of their existence. The collectivist principles made an assumption when people serve one another to the best of their ability, every person living in that society mutually benefits (Johannessen, 32). Nonetheless, in Russia, the rise to power by the Communists had been blood-spattered as well as entangled with totalitarian principles in the pretence of socialism. While numerous contemporary philosophers argued that the Great Depression had minimal effect on the Soviet Union as evidence of the efficacy of Communism in addition to others presupposing that Soviet Communism had turned out to be repressive because of lack of proper leadership. Rand sums up that there were inherent flaws in collectivism, and this is what she undertook to make known in Anthem.
The rules that Equality adopts his life to be as living in his own home. Equality lives in a home with a hundred other people. Now he lives in his home as a free man and not with other people. “I shall live here, in my own house” (Rand 99). Equality lives his life at a home that is not controlled by a higher power. Equality now instead of having a higher power control his livelihood, he can control his own life and live as a free man.
The article, "God on Their Side" was written by Nicholas D. Kristof. Kristof wrote the article as an opinionated article that portrays his idea of the many different missionaries in Africa and their actions since they have been there. The reader of the article will learn about the help that the missionaries are providing and also of how they are still educating people on their message of God. The article also expresses the differences between the reader’s world and the world in Africa. The reader is able to understand how their life is better then the African people. The reader of "God on Their Side" would be a person who was interested in the New York Times, Kristof and his opinions on the missionaries in Africa.
The concept, destruction of identity, in Toni Morrison’s Beloved emphasizes the struggles that the characters had to endure to gain their freedom, constantly reminded of the devastation in the past. It reflects the negative impact that slavery had on everyone, destroying the identities of the characters not , just emotionally, but physically and spiritually as well. Sethe, Baby Suggs, and Paul D. were former slaves who lived in freedom, but were haunted by Beloved’s presence that brought upon suppressed memories and increased their self-alienation from the world. The history of slavery is acknowledged through the different character’s perspectives that tells the story of their dehumanized slave life to get a glimpse of their traumatizing experiences. Through characterization and comparison perspectives, Morrison in Beloved argues that slavery hinders the ability to progress as an individual, but time revitalizes the human spirit which ultimately gives identity to one’s self.
Religious accusations, which serve as catalysts for conflict, help to develop an accurate portrayal of imperialism and Ibo culture. In Things Fall Apart, the missionaries assertively state “Your gods are not alive and cannot do you any harm” (Achebe 146). This quotation shows the imperialists accusing the gods the Ibo people believe in and worship of being false gods that are idols. These gods cannot harm them and do not pose any threat. Also, in Achebe’s interview, “An African Voice,” he says “You have leaders who see nothing wrong in inciting religious conflict.
“When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said “let us pray.” We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.”- Bishop Desmond Tutu.
Kaduna: Baraka Press, 2004. Magesa, Laurenti. A. African Religion: The Moral Tradition of Abundant Life. Nairobi: Pauline Pub., Africa, 1998. Mbiti, John S. Introduction to African Religion.