Cry, the Beloved Country literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Cry, the Beloved blogger.comted Reading Time: 2 mins · Cry, The Beloved Country is written with honesty and true gravity. Its many themes arise from exploitation, division, humility, compassion, understanding, and reconciliation. In an essay which draws on the action, the relationships between characters, and the historical context of the novel, show how the themes are realized in each of the areas above In Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country, John Kumalo and Dubula are united in their opposition to South Africa’s racial injustices. But while Kumalo enumerates grievances without suggesting realistic solutions, Dubula represents positive, pragmatic change—not to mention the possibility of cooperation between whites and blacks. Paton contrasts Kumalo and Dubula to argue that a policy of cooperation
Cry, the Beloved Country: Theme Analysis Essay Example
Cry, The Beloved Country, by Alan Paton, contains numerous comparisons between two different yet similar locations in South Africa. Each comparison further shows the deviation between the thoughts and traditions of old and new. The main conflicts in the novel revolve around the differences of two locations, Ndotsheni and Johannesburg, which represent the cry the beloved country essay of the old and traditional ways, with the contradicting lifestyle and thoughts of the modern and progressive age.
These thoughts are what make Cry, The Beloved Country such an interesting and profound work of literature. This can be cry the beloved country essay understood by analyzing how the two places differ, what each place represents, and how their cry the beloved country essay contributes to the meaning of the work.
The small cry the beloved country essay of Ndotsheni vastly contrasts the cry the beloved country essay and sprawling metropolis of Johannesburg.
Ndotsheni is a small village that lies in the South African province of Natal. But the rich green hills break down. They fall to the valley below, and falling, change their nature.
For they grow red and bare; they cannot hold the rain and mist, cry the beloved country essay, and the streams are dry in the kloofs. It is explained later that the valleys are barren from over grazing of cattle and the lack of correct farming methods used in the area has caused the deterioration of the land around Ndotsheni and, cry the beloved country essay, as explained elsewhere in the book, in other similar locations throughout South Africa.
In contrast, cry the beloved country essay, Johannesburg is a large bustling city, where the able bodied of the villages often venture to seek out work or a better life. The journey to the bustling city is one that is often thought of as dangerous and scary to those who remain back home.
Often a loved one leaves and then shortly after another leaves to go and find the one who left before, but all too often nothing is heard from either who ventured away from their home. When these people arrive in Johannesburg, the world they face is very different and uncertain from the one they left, cry the beloved country essay. They are faced with a completely new society, one often more desperate than the one they left behind.
A majority of the men who leave the villages come to Johannesburg to work in the gold mines, hoping to make a living crawling through the tunnels looking for gold they cannot keep. The horrible conditions in mining camps and in the crowded city leave an open door for crime to spread and flourish amongst them. This crime causes the native residents of Johannesburg to fear the newcomers who arrive hoping to make a living. However, from this fear it motivates some to do good, like send aid and assistance back to the far away villages in hopes that the people will remain there and the overcrowding of the cities will cease.
However, in the timeframe of the book, these are but hopes and the actual processes of making these hopes a reality is few and far between. Each of these locations represents two very different trains of thought. The village of Ndotsheni represents the traditional values of the native peoples.
This is seen in the use of the chief as the main leadership in their form of government along with the use of their native languages. It is also prevalent that the people of the cry the beloved country essay villages hold to their religion alot stronger than some of those who have moved to the larger cities. For example the practice of counting your wealth in cattle has caused severe overgrazing of the valleys which has devastated the quality of the farmland.
This devastation has caused many of the residents to pack up and move to the larger ities like Johannesburg. In Johannesburg, the forward thinking notion tends to take over along with the loss of some of the more conservative values of the villages. There are numerous forward thinkers looking for ways to improve the lives of many while yet there are those who chose to remain in the olden more traditional thoughts. For example, Arthur Jarvis is one of these forward thinkers, cry the beloved country essay.
He looks for ways to improve the lives of the less fortunate which are often times the natives who have come to work in the mines and have fallen into a life of crime to try and survive.
Another example is John Kumalo. John is one of the most powerful black advocates for civil rights for native South Africans. These forward thinkers are namely contested by their opponents like the mine owners and other wealthy business owners who rely on the cheap labor available from the native population. From this Contrast of motive and belief stems the main thought this book advocates, the recognition of civil rights for native South Africans.
The novel opens up and dives into the thoughts behind both sides of the argument. On the side of pro civil rights it shows the conditions that a lot of the natives come from and the often worse conditions they move to. In their home villages the crops are failing due to poor land maintenance so they leave home to find work elsewhere in cities like Johannesburg, cry the beloved country essay. Most of the natives work in the mines and live in the crowded mining camps which have been set up to house the incoming workers.
The conditions of these camps are likely awful, as they are merely a means to house a mass of manual laborers. However on the side of those against civil rights, they view the oncoming workers as a detriment to their society. They consider them inferior not only due to their race but due to other factors such as education and language. The fear and concern that stems from these inferiorities feeds the thought that the natives should be treated as subhuman and do not deserve the rights of the upper class or simply the white population of South Africa.
The author, Alan Paton, sides with those who are pro civil rights. This is evident in the character of James Jarvis. James is introduced in the book as the father of Arthur, who was murdered by Absalom, and also as a conservative who tends to align with those against the civil rights of the natives.
However as he learns more of his son and the work he did his thoughts begin to shift to the pro civil rights side of the fence. This shift is clearly shown in with his improved relations with the village of Ndotsheni which his farm overlooks.
It is also through the work of James that the agricultural inspectors arrive in Ndotsheni to begin work on the dam cry the beloved country essay to educate the villagers with better farming techniques. Alan Paton did an exceptional job of bringing these issues to light in Cry, The Beloved Country. Through his use of the two contrasting communities of Ndotsheni and Johannesburg he is able to show in a very clear light the plight that engulfed South Africa at the time.
Through the differences of the two places, cry the beloved country essay, what each represented, and in the ways their contrast contributed to the meaning of the work, Alan Paton was able to craft an exceptional work of literature that put in simple light and simple terms the message he was trying to convey to his audience.
Cry The Beloved Country Essay,Song Analysis Example,Synthesis,Easy,(Video Review)
, time: 0:51Cry, the Beloved Country: A+ Student Essay | SparkNotes
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton. Summary. Analysis. Characters (4) Essays (19) Quotes (41) All Books (1) Social Breakdown and Racial Injustice The society depicted in Cry, the Beloved Country, is an unjust one, divided on racial lines. The white people, made up of Afrikaner and English-speakers, have taken the most profitable farmland from the blacks Summer Assignment Topic A - Cry, the Beloved Country. Alan Paton’s work is significant in that it highlights and analyzes, from both white and black perspective, the racial boundary and its effect on society as a whole. This boundary, as Paton emphasizes, has a diverse affect on different groups of people, as well as individuals. The way that those individuals react, in Paton’s book, defines whether Cry, the Beloved Country is a novel of social protest—a protest against apartheid, the policy of racial segregation that existed in South Africa
No comments:
Post a Comment