Cry, the Beloved Country

Alan Paton

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1948

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Book 1, Chapters 1-8

Book 1, Chapters 9-17

Book 2, Chapters 18-29

Book 3, Chapters 30-36

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Themes

Racial Divides and Societal Prejudice

The setting of Cry, the Beloved Country takes place a few years before the institution of apartheid, where the Racial Divides and Societal Prejudice in South Africa grows. Through Reverend Stephen Kumalo’s experiences in Johannesburg and Ndotsheni, Alan Paton highlights the prejudices of white South African people toward Black South African people. Kumalo and friend Theophilus Msimangu’s experience with bus protests best exemplifies how the South African government dehumanizes Black South African citizens. The bus system charges Black people more for travel, causing citizens to protest by walking instead. However, Kumalo and Msimangu experience the kindness of a white driver who sees them walking the 11 miles to Alexandra. He offers them a ride, and on the way back, Kumalo sees other white people pick up Black workers—yet, white police officers intervene and threaten to take these drivers to court. Likewise, a young white man from Shanty Town’s reformatory supports Kumalo after his son Absalom is sentenced to death for murder. Despite such stands against racism, Paton frames the white people involved as a minority. Due to heightened racial tension, including Absalom’s murder of white man Arthur Jarvis, the majority of “white Johannesburg was afraid of black crime” (52).

Sensationalized headlines surrounding “native crime” only serve to reinforce the white narrative that segregation would be beneficial for South African society. In reality, Black labor is what builds white society’s economic and social structures. Kumalo’s brother John reflects on this inequality of labor and wages: To him, white people do not understand that South Africa “is not built on the mines […] it is built on our backs, on our sweat, on our labour” (68). Johannesburg’s racial tension causes Kumalo to fear for the future of South Africa. Inspired by Msimangu, he believes love alone can overcome fear. However, he fears the length of time it will take white South African people to come to a place of love and understand their part in Black South African people’s suffering. This is what makes Kumalo and James Jarvis’s relationship important, as the latter lost his son to Kumalo’s son but still exhibits sympathy for the family. Through his own son’s writing, James learns to examine his own privilege as a white man. The novel frames the solution to racial divides and societal prejudice as one of healing together and confronting hard, uncomfortable truths as a collective community.

Breakdown of Family and Community

Kumalo struggles with accepting the Breakdown of Family and Community as he watches the disintegration of tribal society. Although he accepts the tribe will never repair itself, he still strives toward building and maintaining community in a society that promotes individualism. Over time, young people leave the village of Ndotsheni to explore what Johannesburg can offer them. Before long, Ndotsheni is a “valley of old men and old women, of mothers and children. The men are away, the young men and the girls are away. The soil cannot keep them anymore” (34). This rupture leads to the “broken tribe and the broken house, of young men and young girls that went away and forget their customs, and lived loose and idle lives” (52). Despite his grief over the broken traditions, Kumalo travels to Johannesburg because he believes he can rebuild by bringing his family members back to Ndotsheni. Even then, the tribe does not stay together.

In Shanty Town, Kumalo faces the devastating poverty of the Black South African residents trying to build community. The state of Shanty Town saddens him, but he understands the desire to build community, even out of nothing. Through his journey to find Absalom, he recognizes his own naivete and the necessity of power to enact real change. However, Kumalo still decides to build a community, even if it is different from the tribal society he knows. He accepts the change of plan, returning to Ndotsheni without his son Absalom, sister Gertrude, or brother John—instead, he returns with Absalom’s wife and Gertrude’s son, him and his wife treating the pair as their own children. Through his connection with James, the people of Ndotsheni are given much needed milk and taught to farm the land without white interference. Despite this attempt to rebuild community, agricultural demonstrator Napoleon Letsitsi reminds Kumalo that the community will break down in the future due to the nature of colonization. Since white colonizers only allowed the Indigenous people of Ndotsheni a small amount of land, there will never be enough resources to feed residents, therefore families will always have to part and move—unless systemic change happens.

The Duality of Hope and Despair

Paton mainly explores The Duality of Hope and Despair through Kumalo, whose conflict surrounds his faith as a reverend and his son Absalom’s crimes. Kumalo’s fluctuating journey represents the greater narrative of South Africa achieving equality and peace sometime in the future. His hope stems from his faith in God, that God will restore the concept of a “tribe,” and with it, South Africa itself. Even in the face of racism, Kumalo and other Black South African people maintain hope. Msimangu’s dream is for “white men and black men, desiring neither power nor money, but desiring only the good of their country, [to] come together to work for it” (71). Despite sharing this dream, Kumalo’s faith is challenged when he finds out Absalom murdered a white man, Arthur. His normally optimistic spirit sinks into depression and disappointment when he reunites with Absalom. The depth of his grief causes him to believe “God has turned from [him]” (140). Through prayer, Kumalo restores his hope, albeit with more realism. He realizes ideas are not enough to sustain people, that if he wants to restore community, he will need to give the people of Ndotsheni skills to stay together rather than remain apart. Likewise, James fluctuates between grieving his son Arthur and furthering Kumalo’s goal in the spirit of Arthur—thus keeping his own family together through shared work, even after death.

Although Kumalo struggles with his faith, Paton ends the novel on a hopeful note. Kumalo expresses fear that South Africa will devolve because of growing racial tension. Paton acknowledges this possibility, but deliberately ends the novel with a new dawn—which represents future freedom, even if it is too far in the future for the characters to see for themselves. Despite the threat of apartheid and active dehumanization of Black South African people, the light of freedom is framed as a matter of time. Faith in a better tomorrow plays a crucial part in the novel’s final note of hope, as there are no concrete guarantees in the here-and-now for the novel’s characters—both Kumalo and James have lost their sons, and Kumalo is unable to stop his son’s execution. Rather than resolve the duality of hope and despair in a triumphant message, Patton holds faith in a better tomorrow, modeled by the relationship between Kumalo and James.