Cry, the Beloved Country essay?

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The novel opens in the village of Ixopo, where the black pastor, Stephen Kumalo, receives a letter from the priest Theophilus Msimangu in Johannesburg. Msimangu urges Kumalo to come to the city to help his sister, Gertrude, because she is “ill”. Kumalo goes to Johannesburg to help Gertrude and to find his son, Absalom, who had gone to the city to look for Gertrude but never came home. When he gets to the city, Kumalo learns that Gertrude has taken up a life of prostitution, and is now drinking heavily. She agrees to return to the village with her young son.

Kumalo embarks on the search for his son, first seeing his brother John, a carpenter who has become involved in the politics of South Africa. Kumalo and Msimangu follow Absalom’s trail only to learn that Absalom has been in a reformatory and impregnated a young woman. Shortly thereafter, Kumalo learns that his son has been arrested for the murder of Arthur Jarvis, a white fighter for racial justice and son of Kumalo’s neighbour James Jarvis.

Jarvis learns of his son’s death and comes with his family to Johannesburg. Jarvis and his son had been distant, and now the father begins to know his son through his writings. Through reading his son’s essays, Jarvis decides to take up his son’s work on behalf of South Africa’s blacks.

Absalom is sentenced to death for the murder of Arthur Jarvis. Before his father returns to Ixopo, Absalom marries the girl he has impregnated, and she joins Kumalo’s family. Kumalo returns to his village with his daughter-in-law and nephew, finding that Gertrude ran away on the night before their departure.

Back in Ixopo, Kumalo makes a futile visit to the tribe’s chief in order to discuss changes that must be made to help the barren village. Help arrives, however, when Jarvis becomes involved in the work. He arranges to have a dam built and hires an agricultural demonstrator to implement new farming methods.

The novel ends on the night of Absalom’s execution, which finds Kumalo praying on a mountainside as dawn breaks over the valley. The book ends with a tone of rejuvenation and hope for the country.

Characters in Cry, The Beloved Country

Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.

Main themes

Cry, the Beloved Country is a social protest against the structures of the society that would later give rise to apartheid. Paton attempts to create an unbiased and objective view of the dichotomies this entails: he depicts the Whites as affected by ‘native crime’, while the Blacks suffer from social instability and moral issues due to the breakdown of the tribal system. It shows many of the problems with South Africa such as the degrading of the land reserved for the natives, which is sometimes considered to be the main theme, the disintegration of the tribal community, native crime and the flight to the urban areas. The quote below shows another recurring theme which is how fear affects the characters and society of South Africa.

Paton makes frequent use of literary devices such as microcosms, intercalary chapters, dashes instead of quotation marks for dialogue, and a number of other things to show the state of South Africa. A microcosm is a form of symbolism that uses a small thing to depict something on a larger scale. Intercalary chapters are literally chapters that are ‘in between’: they have almost nothing to do with the story, but often are microcosms. There are no double quotes in the whole book; instead Paton uses dashes (–) to indicate the start of speech acts. This may not seem like a literary device at first, but soon it becomes evident that they do a lot more than would be expected. Because there are no phrases such as “he said” or “she said”, it is faster to read and, especially in the intercalary chapters, adds a feeling of desperation and rapid progress towards the novel’s final catastrophe.

Background

Cry, The Beloved Country was written just before the passage of the legislation that is often historically seen as initialising the official formalisation of the apartheid regime in South Africa, in 1948. It is nonetheless in many respects a direct attack on the intolerant ideas behind apartheid.

It has long enjoyed critical success around the world, except in South Africa itself , where it was initially banned, due to its politically dangerous material, and has since been criticised in some quarters as having an “Uncle Tom” bias.[citation needed] The book sold over 15 million copies around the world before Paton’s death.

The book is studied currently by many schools around the world.

The style of writing often crosses the line between prose and poetry – and is often compared to the King James Bible. Paton was in fact a devout Anglican Christian – and the hero of the novel is an Anglican priest. The dignity and simplicity of the prose may also be connected with a conscious or unconscious process of composing passages in Zulu and mentally translating them into English.

RE:
Cry, the Beloved Country essay?
I need to write an essay atleast 4 pages. about anything about Cry, the Beloved Country. does anyone have one I could use? PLEASE!!!.. I just need something to look @ revise. Its due tomorrow & I totally spaced..I have ALOT of essay to exchange or something. haha.. thanks!!