CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY

Introduction:
African literature is literature of or from Africa and includes oral literature (or
"orature", in the term coined by Ugandan scholar Pio Zirimu). African literature consists
of a body of work in different languages and various genres, ranging from oral literature
to literature written in colonial languages (French, Portuguese, and English). The first
African literature is circa 2300- 2100, when ancient Egyptians begin using burial texts to
accompany their dead. These include the first written accounts of creation - the Memphite
Declaration of Deities. Not only that, but 'papyrus', from which we originate our word for
paper, was invented by the Egyptians, and writing flourished. In contrast, Sub-Saharan
Africa features a vibrant and varied oral culture.

They provide useful knowledge, historical knowledge, ethical wisdom, and creative
motivation in a direct fashion. Oral culture takes many forms: proverbs and riddles, epic
narratives, oration and personal testimony, praise poetry and songs, chants and rituals,
stories, legends and folk tales. In the period Colonization, African oral traditions and
written works came under a serious outside threat. Europeans, justifying themselves with
the Christian ethics, tried to destroy the "pagan" and "primitive" culture of the Africans,
to make them more pliable slaves. As George Joseph notes in his chapter on African
literature in Understanding Contemporary Africa, whereas European views of literature
often stressed a separation of art and content, African awareness is inclusive:

"Literature" can be the parts of Asian also imply an artistic use of words for the
sake of art alone. [...T] traditionally, Africans do not radically separate art from teaching.
Rather than write or sing for beauty in itself, African writers, taking their cue from oral
literature, use beauty to help communicate important truths and information to society.
Indeed, an object is considered beautiful because of the truths it reveals and the
communities it helps to build.

African Literature is history of Slavery, oppression or suppression, violence and

humiliations of their life. This literature is not for entertainment, not for aesthetic delight
but such literature disturb the mind, leads to think about Humanity and so many other
things. This literature is not written out compassion but it is written out of Disgustful life
which is experienced by writers themselves. Flood of colonialism, Capitalism and
Industrialism lead them towards salve mentality.

We cant enjoy the narration of any text because writers have no good memories to
write then how can we expect that they write something romantic or anything else when
their lives itself in danger or mental states are in trauma...They are suffering from
Dominant power and live in fear. They cannot explore their Feelings and Emotions as
human beings because they are not treated like as Human Beings

The most notable literary selections are those that capture the life and struggle of
the African people. There have been significant struggles that could have been left
untouched, but writers choose to face courageous task of answering the call of pen, and
begin the process of social healing through literature. Perhaps, it is this brilliant
characteristic of African literature that enables it to shine and fulfill one universal
function of literature.

The literary tradition of Africa became richer than ever as it gained artistic and
sophisticated expression in different languages. Traditional languages became vehicles of
cultural thoughts. Poetry, drama, novel, and short story flourished as the literary genres.
The peoples struggle to cope with or oppose the changing atmosphere of their
homelands was dramatically recorder in what is known as African literature.
Literature represents the breadth and depth of universal experiences of man. The texts
for the study of African literature shed light on controversial issues such as racial
discrimination, apartheid, political conflicts, civil wars, feminism and gender sensitivity,
and human rights issues. These have given the selections the flavor of relevance and
universality, which are outstanding themes of a meaningful literary study. Written
literature includes novels, plays, poems, hymns, and tales.

A discussion of written African literatures raises a number of complicated and

complex problems and questions that only can be briefly sketched out here. The first
problem concerns the small readership for African literatures in Africa. Over 50% of
Africa's population is illiterate, and hence many Africans cannot access written
literatures. The scarcity of books available, the cost of those books, and the scarcity of
publishing houses in Africa exacerbate this already critical situation. Despite this,
publishing houses do exist in Africa, and in countries such as Ghana and Zimbabwe,
African publishers have produced and sold many impressive works by African authors,
many of which are written in African languages.

Scholars have identified three waves of literacy in Africa. The first occurred in
1.Ethiopia where written works have been discovered that appeared before the earliest
literatures in the Celtic and Germanic languages of Western Europe. The second wave of
literacy moved across 2.Africa with the spread of Islam. Soon after the emergence of
Islam in the seventh century, its believers established themselves in North Africa through
a series of jihads, or holy wars. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Islam was carried
into the kingdom of Ghana. The religion continued to move eastward through the
nineteenth century. The encounter with 3.Europe through trade relationships, missionary
activities, and colonialism propelled the third wave of literacy in Africa.
 In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, literary activity in the British colonies
was conducted almost entirely in vernacular languages. Missionaries found it more useful
to translate the Bible into local languages than to teach English to large numbers of
Africans. This resulted in the production of hymns, morality tales, and other literatures in
African languages concerned with propagating Christian values and morals. The first of
these "Christian-inspired African writings" emerged in South Africa

The written literatures, novels, plays, and poems in the 1950s and 60s have been
described as literatures of testimony. The African authors who produced literatures in
European languages have been described as literatures of revolt. These texts move away
from the project of recuperating and reconstructing an African past and focus on
responding to, and revolting against, colonialism and corruption. These literatures are
more concerned with the present realities of African life, and often represent the past
negatively.

African literature, the body of traditional oral and written literature in afro- Asiatic
and African language together with works written by Africans in European language
.traditional written literature, which is limited to smaller geographic area than is oral
literature, is most characteristic of those sub- Saharan culture that have participated in
the culture of the Mediterranean.

In particular, there are written literature in both Hausa and Arabic, created by the
scholar of what is now northern Nigeria, and the Somali people have produce a
traditional written literature. There are also works written in Ge ez (Ethiopic) and
Amharic, two of the language of Ethiopia, which is the one part of Africa where
Christianity has been practiced long enough to be considered traditional. Works written
in European language date primarily from the 20th century onward.
 The literature of South Africa in English and Afrikaans is also covered in a
separate article South African literature. south of the relationship between oral and
written tradition and in particular between oral and modern written literatures is one of
great complexity and not a matter of simple evolution . Modern African literatures were
born in the educational systems imposed by Colonialism, with models drawn from
Europe rather than existing African traditions. But the African oral traditions exerted
their own influence on these literatures.

Oral literature (or orature) may be in prose or verse. The prose is often
mythological or historical and can include tales of the trickster character. Storytellers in
Africa sometimes use call-and-response techniques to tell their stories. Poetry, often sung,
includes: narrative epic, occupational verse, ritual verse, praise poemsrulers and other
prominent people. Praise singers, bards sometimes known as "griots", tell their stories
with music.] Also recited, often sung, are love songs, work songs, children's songs, along
with epigrams, proverbs and riddles. A revised edition of Ruth Finnegan's classic
book Oral Literature in Africa Oral Literature in Africa was released by the Cambridge-
based Open Book Publishers in September 2012.

Pre-Colonial African literatures are numerous. Oral literature of West Africa

includes the "Epic of Sundiata" composed in medieval Mali, and the older "Epic of
Dinga" from the old Ghana Empire. In Ethiopia, there is a substantial literature written
in Ge'ez going back at least to the 4th century AD; the best-known work in this tradition is
the Kebra Negast, or "Book of Kings." One popular form of traditional African folktale is
the "trickster" story, in which a small animal uses its wits to survive encounters with
larger creatures. Examples of animal tricksters include Anansi, a spider in the folklore of
the Ashanti people of Ghana; Ijp, a tortoise in Yoruba folklore of Nigeria; and Sungura,
a hare found in central and East African folklore. Other works in written form are
abundant, namely in North Africa, the Sahel regions of West Africa and on the Swahili
coast. From Timbuktu alone, there are an estimated 300,000 or more manuscripts tucked
away in various libraries and private collections, mostly written in Arabic but some in the
native languages (namely Fula and Songhai). Many were written at the
famous University of Timbuktu. The material covers a wide array of topics, including
astronomy, poetry, law, history, faith, politics, and philosophy. Swahili literature similarly,
draws inspiration from Islamic teachings but developed under indigenous circumstances.
One of the most renowned and earliest pieces of Swahili literature being Utendi wa
Tambuka or "The Story of Tambuka".

In Islamic times, North Africans such as ibn Khaldun attained great distinction
within Arabic literature. Medieval North Africa boasted universities such as those
of Fes and Cairo, with copious amounts of literature to supplement them.

The African Colonial works best known in the West from the period of colonization and
the slave trade are primarily slave narratives, such as Olaudah Equiano's The Interesting
Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789).

In the colonial period, Africans exposed to Western languages began to write in

those tongues. In 1911, Joseph Ephraim Casely Hayford (also known as Ekra-Agiman) of
the Gold Coast (now Ghana) published what is probably the first African novel written in
English, Ethiopia Unbound: Studies in Race Emancipation. Although the work moves
between fiction and political advocacy, its publication and positive reviews in the
Western press mark a watershed moment in African literature.

During this period, African plays written in English began to emerge. Herbert
Isaac Ernest Dhlomo of South Africa published the first English-language African
play, The Girl Who Killed to Save: Nongqawuse the Liberator in 1935. In 1962, Ngg
wa Thiong'o of Kenya wrote the first East African drama, The Black Hermit, a cautionary
tale about "tribalism" (discrimination between African tribes).

African literature in the late colonial period (between the end of World War I and
independence) increasingly showed themes of liberation, independence, and (among
Africans in French-controlled territories) ngritude. One of the leaders of the ngritude
movement, the poet and eventual President of Senegal, Lopold Sdar Senghor,
published in 1948 the first anthology of French-language poetry written by
Africans, Anthologie de la nouvelle posie ngre et malgache de langue
franaise (Anthology of the New Black and Malagasy Poetry in the French Language),
featuring a preface by the French existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre.

Postcolonial African literature With liberation and increased literacy since

most African nations gained their independence in the 1950s and 1960s, African literature
has grown dramatically in quantity and in recognition, with numerous African works
appearing in Western academic curricula and on "best of" lists compiled at the end of the
19th century. African writers in this period wrote both in Western languages
(notably English, French, and Portuguese) and in traditional African languages such
as Hausa.

Ali A. Mazrui and others mention seven conflicts as themes: the clash between
Africa's past and present, between tradition and modernity, between indigenous and
foreign, between individualism and community, between socialism and capitalism,
between development and self-reliance and between Africanity and humanity.[12] Other
themes in this period include social problems such as corruption, the economic disparities
in newly independent countries, and the rights and roles of women.
 The twentieth century witnessed the blossoming of a generation of
North African writers whose craft combined centuries of Arab narratological conventions
and Western influences. These writers either write in Arabic and have influential
translations of their works in English and French, or they write directly in the two
European languages. Of those whose works attained international recognition in English
are the Egyptians Naguib Mahfouz and Nawal El Saadawi. Mahfouz's deft handling of
historical realism, his inimitable depiction of quotidian life in Cairo turned his fiction into
an important opus of Arab imagination and earned him the Nobel prize for literature in
1988, while Saadawi'stransgressive novels have become some of the most important
feminist works in the twentieth century.

A literary genre is a category of literary composition. There are five types of

genres in literature, which include: poetry, prose, drama, fiction and novel. A novel is a
long narrative, normally in prose, which describes fictional characters and events, usually
in the form of a sequential story. The genre has also been described as possessing "a
continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years".[1] This view sees
the novel's origins in Classical Greece and Rome, medieval, early modern romance, and
the tradition of the novella. The latter, an Italian word used to describe short stories,
supplied the present generic English term in the 18th century. Ian Watt, however, in The
Rise of the Novel (1957) suggests that the novel first came into being in the early 18th
century, A novel is a type of book. Like most new art forms, literary and otherwise, it is a
difficult object to define comprehensively, but most typically it can be taken to be a long
piece of narrative fiction. Written prose, historically turned towards folk tales, myths,
hagiographies and epics, is now being used to tell all sorts of stories about ourselves, the
heavens, and everything in between.

It may be helpful to think of the novel as a loose genre encompassing all those
mentioned above, but also one that allows for stories outside the realm of the fantastical.
Stories, to put it sim The qualifications (or requirements) of the novel are quite porous.
We may say that the novel must contain a single narrative, ruling out collections of short
stories, but the novel has been known to break out of this restriction in countless ways.
We may demand the novel be fiction, but many authors have woven reality and history
into their novels for many reasons. We may ask that a novel be a prose narrative, but
novels exists that contain rhythmic structure, either interspersed with prose text or in lieu
of it. But in general the novel is a book, between one hundred and one thousand pages
long, that tells a single story. The best way to form a sense of what the novel is is to read
one. Through varied exposure to novels you will begin to understand the shape of them,
the thrust of their ambitions. You will forgive their indefinite nature, and come to
appreciate the surprises offered by such creative freedom.ply, about us.

The modern novel in French came much later in the Maghreb. The Algerian,
KatebYacine'sNedjma (1956), is usually considered the first significant work of the
fiction from the Francophone Maghreb, even though the Moroccan, DrissChraibi had
published a novel, Le pass simple (The simple past), two years earlier. North Africa
fiction in French soon blossomed with internationally acclaimed writers such as Tahar
Ben Jelloun, AbdelhakSerhane, AbdelkbirKhatibi, and AssiaDjebar. Djebar's expansive
fictional opus, which explores wide-ranging themes such as the trauma of French
colonization of Algeria, the brutal war of liberation, and the condition of women in the
context of religion and tradition, has become the quintessence of North African literature
in French.

With regard to subsaharan Africa, discussions of written literatures tend to take the late
nineteenth century as a rough starting point. Indigenous language literatures evolved as a
consequence of missionary activity during this period. Missionaries established churches
and schools and introduced forms of orthography into local languages to facilitate
translations of religious literature. As a result, indigenous language literatures blossomed
in western, central, eastern, and southern Africa in the nineteenth and the first half of the
twentieth centuries. The Yoruba fiction of Nigeria's D. O. Fagunwa (19031963) and the
Sotho fiction of Lesotho's Thomas Mofolo (18761948) are notable examples.

The African novel also developed within the ambit of historical revaluation, cultural
nationalism, political contestation, and anticolonial protest. Although modern African
fiction started with the publication of the Ghanaian Joseph Casely-Hayford's (1866
1930) Ethiopia Unbound (1911), it was not until Amos Tutuola's (19201997) The Palm
Wine Drunkard appeared in 1952 that Anglophone West African fiction attained
international recognition. Francophone Africa's first novel, Ren Maran's (d. 1960)
Batouala, was published to considerable acclaim in 1921 and went on to win the
prestigious prix Goncourt. Batouala owed its fame to Maran's vivid portrayal of the
effects of French colonial rule in Africa as well as his evocative and humanizing
descriptions of African life and its environment.

The novel came of age in Francophone Africa from the 1950s onward when writers such
as CamaraLaye (19281980), SeydouBadian (b. 1928), Mongo Beti (19322001),
Ferdinand Oyono (b. 1929), SembeneOusmane (b. 1923), CheikhHamidou Kane (b.
1928), AhmadouKourouma (19272003), Williams Sassine (b. 1944), Sony LabouTansi
(19471995), Henri Lops (b. 1937), AlioumFantour (b. 1938), and TiernoMonenembo
(b. 1947) arrived on the scene. The thematic spectrum of these writers is broad and their
range reveals the shifts that occurred in the sociopolitical dynamics of their informing
contexts, particularly the tragedy of one-party states and military dictatorships that
became the rule in postcolonial Francophone Africa. For instance, Laye'sL'enfant noir
(1953; The African child) is a powerful bildungsroman that explores the growing up of an
African child who loses the values of his traditional society in a world permeated by
European values. In Le pauvre Christ de Bomba (The poor Christ of Bomba) and Une vie
de boy (Houseboy), both published in 1956, Beti and Oyono, respectively, deploy critical
satire to expose the hypocrisies of the colonial situation. Ousmane brings class analysis to
the crisis of colonialism in Les bouts de bois de dieu (1960; God's bits of wood).

In a continent as ethnically and culturally diverse as Africa, it comes as no surprise that

the literature and writers that emerge are equally diverse and multifaceted. Dealing with a
range of social and cultural issues, from womens rights and feminism to post- war and
post- colonial identity.

The African writers belong to 20th century were Chinua Achebe, Things Fall
Apart, 1958; Meshack Asare, Sosu's Call, 1999; Mariama B, Une si longue lettre, 1979.;
Alan Paton ,cry the beloved country,1948. ; Mia Couto, Terra Sonmbula 1992; Tsitsi
Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions, 1988; Cheikh Anta Diop, Antriorit des
Civilisations Ngres / The African Origins of Civilization: Myth or Reality, 1955; Assia
Djebar, L'Amour, La Fantasia, 1985; Naguib Mahfouz, The Cairo Trilogy, 1945;
Thomas Mofolo, Chaka, 1925.; Lopold Sdar Senghor, Oeuvre Potique, 1961;
Wole Soyinka, Ake: The Years of Childhood, 1981; Ngugi wa Thiongo, A Grain of
Wheat, 1967.

Alan Paton, Alan Stewart Paton (11 January 1903 12 April 1988) was a South
African author and anti-apartheid activist. Paton was born in Pietermaritzburg, Natal
Province (now KwaZulu-Natal), the son of a minor civil servant. After
attending Maritzburg College, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree at the University
of Natal in his hometown, followed by a diploma in education. After graduation, Paton
worked as a teacher, first at the Ixopo High School, and subsequently at Maritz burg
College While at Ixopo he met Dorrie Francis Lusted. They were married in 1928 and
remained together until her death from emphysema in 1967. Their life together is
documented in Paton's book Kontakion for You Departed, published in 1969. They had
two sons.
He served as the principal of Diepkloof Reformatory for young (black African) offenders
from 1935 to 1949, where he introduced controversial progressive reforms, including
policies on open dormitories, work permits, and home visitation. The men were initially
housed in closed dormitories; once they had proven themselves trustworthy, they would
be transferred to open dormitories within the compound. Men who showed great
trustworthiness would be permitted to work outside the compound. In some cases, men
were even permitted to reside outside the compound under the supervision of a care
family. Fewer than 5% of the 10,000 men who were given home leave during Paton's
years at Diepkloof ever broke their trust by failing to return

Paton volunteered for service during World War II, but was refused. After the war he took
a trip, at his own expense, to tour correctional facilities across the world. He toured
Scandinavia, England, continental Europe, Canada, and the United States. During his
time in Norway, he began work on his seminal novel Cry, The Beloved Country, which he
completed over the course of his journey, finishing it on Christmas Eve in San Francisco
in 1946. There, he met Aubrey and Marigold Burns, who read his manuscript and found a
publisher: the editor Maxwell Perkins, noted for editing novels of Ernest
Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, guided Paton's first novel through publication with
Scribner's. Paton published numerous books in the 1950s and became wealthy from their
sales.

In 1948, four months after the publication of Cry, The Beloved Country, the
separatist National Party came to power in South Africa. In 1953 Paton founded
the Liberal Party of South Africa, which fought against the apartheid legislation
introduced by the National Party. He remained the president of the SALP until its forced
dissolution by the apartheid regime in the late 1960s, officially because its membership
comprised both blacks and whites. Paton was a friend of Bernard Friedman, founder of
the Progressive Party. Paton's writer colleague Laurens van der Post, who had moved to
England in the 1930s, helped the party in many ways. Van der Post knew that the South
African Secret Police were aware that he was paying money to Paton, but could not stop
it by legal procedures. Paton himself adopted a peaceful opposition in protests against
apartheid, as did many others in the party; some SALP members took a more violent
route, and consequently some stigma did attach to the party. Paton's passport was
confiscated on his return from New York in 1960, where he had been presented with the
annual Freedom Award. It was not returned for ten years. Paton retired to Botha's Hill,
where he resided until his death. He is honoured at the Hall of Freedom of the Liberal
International organisation.

Cry, The Beloved Country has been filmed twice (in 1951 and 1995) and was the basis for
the Broadway musical Lost in the Stars (adaptation by Maxwell Anderson, music by Kurt
Weill). Paton's second and third novels, Too Late the Phalarope (1953) and Ah, but Your
Land is Beautiful (1981), and his short stories, Tales From a Troubled Land (1961), all
deal with the same racial themes that concerned the author in his first novel. Ah, but Your
Land is Beautiful was built on parallel life stories, letters, speeches, news and records in
legal proceedings, and mixed fictional and real-life characters, such as Donald
Molteno, Albert Luthuli and Hendrik Verwoerd. The novel is categorised as historical
fiction, as it gives an accurate account of the resistance movement in South Africa during
the 1960s. "Paton attempts to imbue his characters with a humanity not expected of them.
In this novel, for example, we meet the supposedly obdurate Afrikaner who contravenes
the infamous Immorality Act. There are other Afrikaners, too, who are led by their
consciences and not by rules, and regulations promulgated by a faceless, monolithic
parliament."

Paton was a prolific essay writer on race and politics in South Africa. In Save the Beloved
Country he plays on the famous title of his first novel, but keeps a serious tone in
discussing many of the famous personalities and issues on different sides of South
Africa's apartheid struggle. His Anglican faith was another factor in his life and work: the
title of one work is Instrument of Thy Peace. Paton also wrote two
autobiographies: Towards the Mountain deals with Paton's life leading up to and
including the publication of Cry, the Beloved Country (an event that changed the course
of his life) while Journey Continued takes its departure from that time onwards. He also
wrote biographies of his friends Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr (Hofmeyr), and Geoffrey
Clayton (Apartheid and the Archbishop). Another literary form that interested him
throughout his life was poetry; the biographer Peter Alexander includes many of these
poems in his biography of Paton. Publications of Paton's work include a volume of his
travel writing, The Lost City of the Kalahari (2006), and a complete selection of his
shorter writings, The Hero of Currie Road. The Alan Paton Award for non-fiction is
conferred annually in his honour.

Some of the novel written by paton ,Cry, The Beloved Country, 1948 , it was the first
novel, and remains his best- kmown novel in the theme of apartheid and post colonist
and made into a film in 1951, directed by Zoltan Korda with a screenplay by Paton
himself; in 1995, directed by Darrell Roodt; also a musical and an opera, Lost in the
Stars 1950 a musical based on the above work (book and lyrics by Maxwell Anderson,
music by Kurt Weill), Too Late the Phalarope, 1953, Kontakion For You Departed, 1969
(also: For You Departed), D. C. S. Oosthuizen Memorial Lecture, 1970.

Cry, the Beloved Country is a novel by Alan Paton, published in 1948. American
publisher Bennett Cerf remarked at that year's meeting of the American Booksellers
Association that there had been "only three novels published since the first of the year
that were worth reading Cry, The Beloved Country, The Ides of March, and The Naked
and the Dead." Two cinema adaptations of the book have been made, the first
in 1951 and the second in 1995. The novel was also adapted as a musical called Lost in
the Stars (1949), with a book by the American writer Maxwell Anderson and music
composed by the German emigre Kurt Weill.

In the remote village of Ndotsheni, in the Natal province of eastern South Africa, the
Reverend Stephen Kumalo receives a letter from a fellow minister summoning him
to Johannesburg. He is needed there, the letter says, to help his sister, Gertrude, who the
letter says has fallen ill. Kumalo undertakes the difficult and expensive journey to the city
in the hopes of aiding Gertrude and of finding his son, Absalom, who traveled
to Johannesburg from Ndotsheni and never returned. In Johannesburg, Kumalo is warmly
welcomed by Msimangu, the priest who sent him the letter, and given comfortable
lodging by Mrs. Lithebe, a Christian woman who feels that helping others is her duty.

Kumalo visits Gertrude, who is now a prostitute and liquor seller, and persuades her to
come back to Ndotsheni with her young son.

A more difficult quest follows, when Kumalo and Msimangu begin searching the
labyrinthine metropolis of Johannesburg for Absalom. They visit Kumalo's brother, John,
who has become a successful businessman and politician, and he directs them to the
factory where his son and Absalom once worked together.

One clue leads to another, and as Kumalo travels from place to place, he begins to see the
gaping racial and economic divisions that are threatening to split his country. Eventually,
Kumalo discovers that his son has spent time in a reformatory and that he has gotten a
girl pregnant.

Meanwhile, the newspapers announce that Arthur Jarvis, a prominent white crusader for
racial justice, has been murdered in his home by a gang of burglars. Kumalo and
Msimangu learn that the police are looking for Absalom, and Kumalo's worst suspicions
are confirmed when Absalom is arrested for the murder. Absalom confesses to the crime
but claims that two others, including John's son, Matthew, aided him and that he did not
intend to murder Jarvis.

With the help of friends, Kumalo obtains a lawyer for Absalom and attempts to
understand what his son has become. John, however, makes arrangements for his own
son's defense, even though this split will worsen Absaloms case. When Kumalo tells
Absalom's pregnant girlfriend what has happened, she is saddened by the news, but she
joyfully agrees to his proposal that she marry his son and return to Ndotsheni as Kumalo's
daughter-in-law.

Meanwhile, in the hills above Ndotsheni, Arthur Jarvis' father, James Jarvis, tends his
bountiful land and hopes for rain. The local police bring him news of his son's death, and
he leaves immediately for Johannesburg with his wife. In an attempt to come to terms
with what has happened, Jarvis reads his son's articles and speeches on social inequality
and begins a radical reconsideration of his own prejudices.

He and Kumalo meet for the first time by accident, and after Kumalo has recovered from
his shock, he expresses sadness and regret for Jarvis' loss. Both men attend Absaloms
trial, a fairly straightforward process that ends with the death penalty for Absalom and an
acquittal for his co-conspirators. Kumalo arranges for Absalom to marry the girl who
bears his child, and they bid farewell. The morning of his departure, Kumalo rouses his
new family to bring them back to Ndotsheni, only to find that Gertrude has disappeared.

Kumalo is now deeply aware of how his people have lost the tribal structure that once
held them together, and returns to his village troubled by the situation. It turns out that
James Jarvis has been having similar thoughts. Arthur Jarvis' young son befriends
Kumalo. As the young boy and the old man become acquainted, James Jarvis becomes
increasingly involved with helping the struggling village. He donates milk at first and
then makes plans for a dam and hires an agricultural expert to demonstrate newer, less
devastating farming techniques.

When Jarvis wife dies, Kumalo and his congregation send a wreath to express their
sympathy. Just as the bishop is on the verge of transferring Kumalo, Jarvis sends a note of
thanks for the wreath and offers to build the congregation a new church, and Kumalo is
permitted to stay in his parish.

On the evening before his son's execution, Kumalo goes into the mountains to await the
appointed time in solitude. On the way, he encounters Jarvis, and the two men speak of
the village, of lost sons, and of Jarvis' bright young grandson, whose innocence and
honesty have impressed both men. When Kumalo is alone, he weeps for his sons death
and clasps his hands in prayer as dawn breaks over the valley.

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 it entails: he depicts whites as affected by 'native crime' while
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 urban areas.

Another prevalent theme in Cry, the Beloved Country is the detrimental effects of fear on
the characters and society of South Africa as indicated in the following quotation from
the narrator in Chapter 12:

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.

Paton makes frequent use of literary and linguistic devices such

as microcosms, intercalary chapters and dashes instead of quotation marks for dialogue to
indicate the start of speech acts to portray the devastating conditions in South Africa

The novel is filled with Biblical references and allusions. The most evident are the
names Paton gives to the characters. Absalom, the son of Stephen Kumalo, is named for
the son of King David, who rose against his father in rebellion. Also, in the New
Testament Book of Acts, Saint Stephen was a martyr who died rather than give up his
beliefs. The Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts are written to Theophilus, which
is Greek for "friend of God".

In the novel, Absalom requests that his son be named Peter, the name of one of Jesus's
disciples. Among Peter's better-known traits is a certain impulsiveness; also, after Christ's
arrest, he denied knowing Jesus three times, and later wept in grief over this. After the
resurrection, Peter renewed his commitment to Christ and to spreading the Gospel. All
that suggests Absalom's final repentance and his commitment to the faith of his father.

In another allusion, Arthur Jarvis is described as having a large collection of books

on Abraham Lincoln, and the writings of Lincoln are featured several times in the novel.

Paton describes Arthur's son as having characteristics similar to his when he was a child,
which may allude to the resurrection of Christ.

Cry, the Beloved Country: Post-Colonial Literary Theory, In 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 cases the blacks vs. the whites, rules
the plot. Every characters 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 mans a ride.
This is not a subtle point; the reader is immediately stricken by the diversities in the lives
of the South Africans.
The finer details of the book are what can really be looked at in terms of post-
colonial theory. The fact that a native Zulu, Stephen Kumalo, is a priest of Christianity
and speaks English, communicates how the colonized are living. Neither of these
practices is native to his land, but they are treated by all as if they were. Small sentences
are woven into the plot to further this point, such as the reoccurring European greetings.

Another emphasis is on the learned customs of the people. In court when Kumalo
finds that his son will be hanged, he is touched that a white man breaks the custom to
help him walk outside. When the white boy raised his cap to Kumalo, he, "felt a strange
pride that it should be so, and a strange humility that it should be so, and astonishment
that the small boy should not know the custom." (p. 234). The fact that this small
courtesy was taken so heavily is overwhelming from a post-colonial point of view.
Kumalo is so accustomed to the way of the land that he does not dare think that he
deserves even this respect. Napoleon Letsisi is the character that reveals the significant
political belief of the author.
In the conversation with Kumalo, he explains his views of the country. To this point in
the novel, the reader has been introduced to some white characters many of which are
perceived as sympathetic and kind to the natives. It is easy to share in Kumalos view of
how kind these few people are, while losing sight that the truth is that there is infinite
more oppression than kindness. Letsisi stops the reader from getting caught up in this. He
makes the point that, "what this good white man does is only in repayment." (p. 268). In
terms of post-colonial criticism, this political view shows how desperate the situation for
the indigenous South African truly is. He or she lives under complete restriction, to the
point that he or she cannot realize that others have much more in their lives.