When Gertrude first sees Kumalo, there "is fear in her eyes," and she "draws back a step,

and makes no move

towards him." Gertrude lives in the squalid town of Claremont, which is "the garbage-heap of the proud city" of
Sophiatown. Gertrude is a liquor-seller and a prostitute, and when Kumalo arrives at the door, she is in the act
of plying her trades. Gertrude, who has not had contact with her brother for a long time, is embarrassed and
ashamed.

Gertrude had left the village of Ndotsheni and gone to the city; after a period of time, she had stopped writing
to her family back at home. When Kumalo finally tracks her down at the address in the squalid neighborhood of
Claremont, he hears "laughter in the house...bad laughter," before he even knocks. Gertrude has clients in the
house, and, when she opens the door at Kumalo's knock, keeps him at the door while those within the house
hurriedly try to make things look respectable, and leave. It is only then that she allows Kumalo to come in, and
when she reaches her hand to him "there is no life in it." Brother and sister sit down together, and begin an
awkward conversation. Gertrude lies and says she did not write because she had no money, and, in answer to
Kumalo's query, admits to being in prison but claims she was not guilty. She has been keeping company with
another woman, a liquor-seller, purportedly because she needs money to support her child, but at the moment,
she does not even know where the child is. Angry, Kumalo berates his sister, and tells her that he has come to
take her back home. Gertrude says she wants to go home, and begins to cry; the two pray together, and are
reconciled.

Gertrude, like so many who leave the rural villages where they are born, has succumbed to the vices inherent
in the city, where thousands of displaced black people live in desperate poverty. The social structure of South
Africa in the mid-twentieth century is in sad disarray; depletion of the soil, racism, and oppression have created
a destructive atmosphere of hopelessness in which the native population must endure (Chapter 6).

How do the Kumalo family members symbolize the growing tension in South Africa?

The Kumalo family, like South Africa on the eve of apartheid, is deeply fractured. Much of the story revolves
around Stephen Kumalo's repeated attempts to keep his family together at a time of great upheaval. The
tensions within the family mirror those taking place in society as a whole.

Stephen represents a simpler time, a period of greater stability and certainty. His Zulu tribal heritage provides a
network of care and mutual support. Sadly, that heritage is under threat of extinction. More and more young
people from the village want to leave and seek new opportunities in Johannesburg. In breaking free from their
ancestral homelands, they become atomized and rootless as they attempt to make new lives for themselves in
the big city.

Stephen's son Absalom is one of them. His fate symbolizes the damage that city life poses to the traditional
Zulu culture. Absalom falls in with the wrong crowd and participates in a botched robbery which ends in death.
It does not just result in the death of Arthur Jarvis, it also results in his own death by execution. Every such
death is a tragedy. This is the case not just for the individuals concerned, but also for the land that dies a little
more each time a member of the tribe leaves it untended and open to exploitation.

The rampant corruption of the big city is also embodied in the figure of John, Stephen's brother. One does not
just risk political corruption, one also risks the corruption of the soul, of one's very identity. John has become a
politician, a powerful spokesman for the rights of oppressed black South Africans. Yet, in the process of
developing a racial consciousness, John has lost sense of his tribal roots and the values they represent. His
concern for justice is largely abstract; he has no sense of personal responsibility. He has left his wife to live
with another woman, and he is prepared to pull strings to absolve his son Matthew from involvement in
Absalom's botched robbery, even if it makes things worse for his nephew.

What is especially tragic here is that there is no obvious solution to the growing tensions within both the
Kumalo family and in South Africa as a whole. It is not a simple matter of giving up city life and returning to the
land. Gertrude Kumalo, Stephen's younger sister, for example, cannot do so. She is presented as a woman not
just corrupted by the city, but also as morally eviscerated. By living such a dissolute lifestyle, she has broken
the ancient moral code of the village. Zulu society is traditional, and women are expected to perform the roles
of homemaker, mother, and wife. Having tasted the forbidden fruit of Johannesburg, it is impossible for
Gertrude to return home, even if she was be accepted by the tribe.

There is undoubtedly a religious element to all this. Perhaps there is no earthly salvation for any of the Kumalo
family or the rapidly changing South Africa they inhabit. In their own individual ways, John, Absalom, and
Gertrude have tried to achieve salvation of sorts. However, all that their efforts have shown is the futility of
doing so and the dangers of idolatry, particularly in relation to wealth, power, and status.

It is the meek, simple faith of Stephen Kumalo that tentatively suggests some resolution. This faith is one of
quiet strength in the face of suffering and adversity. Stephen's prayer on the mountainside as his son is
executed is also a prayer for South Africa. The country is on the verge of massive change that will intensify the
already high levels of injustice, bloodshed, and racial intolerance. Stephen's prayer, however naive or forlorn it
may be, allows us a brief glimpse of a still point in a rapidly turning world.