Racial Morals in Cry, The Beloved Country

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Recommended: Apartheid in South Africa -- Historical Context

Racial Morals in Cry, The Beloved Country

Discrimination against people who are different can be identify in every country around the world. People of every sex, color, religion, and in this case, ethnicity are tormented. In the 1940's, 50's, 60's, and 70's apartheid was an emanate injustice throughout the land of South Africa. Apartheid was the government's rigid policy racial segregation between white Europeans and black natives. The official goal of apartheid was to establish laws that would isolate these groups in most activities, especially in education, employment, housing, and politics. The word apartheid means apartness in Afrikaans, one of South Africa's official languages. This inequity caused great conflict between the races. This conflict can be seen through the experiences of Steven Kumalo and James Jarvis, the main characters in the contemporary novel, on which, this paper is written. Both Steven and James have their own different views of apartheid. The character's views of racial segregation in the novel, "Cry, The Beloved Country," by Alan Paton, are reciprocated, resulting in new views of the black and white seclusion.

Steven Kumalo struggled with both public and private feelings toward the whites who imposed the apartheid upon his people. Steven Kumalo is an old, God-fearing, Zulu pastor from the rural valley of Umzimkulu in the countryside of South Africa (Brutus 361). He is beaconed to the large and over-populated city of Johannesburg to help his ailing sister. It is in the big city that he first publicly and privately realizes his feelings of apartheid. "He sees the condition of the black majority in white-ruled South Africa"(Claiborne 311). Kumalo...

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..., for the law and the custom that is gone. Cry, the beloved country, these things are not yet at an end"(Paton 105). Nevertheless, much work was needed to be done by all people in South Africa to help rebuild the broken tribe so that everyone can live in harmony together.

In conclusion, the characters initial racial feelings go through a transitional phase, the end result being optimistic for the future of South Africa. Racial injustice is still seen everywhere across the globe, and will probably remain for eternity. The only thing anyone can do to help break down racial barriers is to make one little change in the way they look at someone who is different. Because after all, every little bit helps, and a great deal of little bits creates a great bit. If there was a great bit, the world would be a better place for anyone of any ethnicity, religion, color, or sex.

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