Rosie

Book Over Break Review

Cry, The Beloved Country

A Novel by Alan Paton

Over break, I read Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton. First, I was struck by the similarities to Okonkwo’s journey in Things Fall Apart. The names and customs of African people (and the use of titles in African dialects) remain present in both novels. Some characteristics I have found typical of post-colonial African literature, at least from my experience with the novels I have read, are the themes of disruption between tradition and modernity and the struggle to find an identity following the period of colonization in their history. Throughout, Cry, The Beloved Country the destruction of the tribal custom and structure is lamented by the main protagonist, Kumalo.

The first part of the novel consists of an introduction to the remains of the tribal society of South Africa. It is immediately apparent as the “natural” alternative. The narrator begins by describing a “lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills” (Paton 34), and continues to emphasize the beauty of his town. The setting seems especially peaceful; the inhabitants get along, and the scenery is exquisite. However, there is clearly an apparent absence. In the narrator’s own family, his brother, his son, and his sister are gone. They have disappeared into the city. Paton uses the emigration to the city to serve as a metaphor for the disillusionment and irreconcilability between tribal life and a more modern city life. After leaving their tribal towns with the native people, “they go to Johannesburg, and there they are lost, and no one hears of them at all” (54). His brother has become a politician who has great ideas but is labeled a coward for not wishing to upset the current white government, his sister has become an unreliable woman “with many husbands” (50), and his son has been transformed into a murderer. Paton is almost obtusely accusatory of the corrupting influence that living the city has on the native population of South Africa.

I found the distinct separation between the ancestry and the present of African society to be very interesting, especially as there is also a separation between the whites and the blacks (apartheid was implemented the year after the publication of the novel). The tension between new and old and white and black serves as the main concern of the novel. There is one character who encompasses the moral right of the novel in his writings. Ironically, the audience never meets this character, Arthur Jarvis. Moreover, it is the child of a broken tribe (Kumalo’s son) who kills him. At this point in the novel, Kumalo believes all hope has been lost, saying “cry, the beloved country for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear” (142). His own son (symbolically the present state of youth in South Africa) has murdered the hope and good in the novel. Kumalo cries not just for the children that have lost their chance at equality, but for the future of a country which exists in a state of disarray; South Africa is splintered not only by race but also split between native tradition and the lure of modern cities.

No present society seems ideal. The first presented is the tribal society, now depleted by those who have left or died. It provides structure and tradition necessary to maintain the integrity of its citizens, however it lacks the strength to keep the future people in its towns. Additionally, it lacks the resources to be productive and fully provide for its people. The second society is the modern society in cities; it provides the lure and excitement that the towns cannot however it entirely lacks the moral guiding systems. Furthermore, there is an intense amount of racial tension present. All members of Kumalo’s family that leave the towns end up corrupted in some way, and even Msimangu (Kumalo’s host in the city) is less patient and more conflicted than his counterpart in a rural town. Arthur Jarvis is entirely correct when he writes:

The old tribal system was…a moral system. Our natives today produce criminals and prostitutes and drunkards not because it is their nature to do so, but because their simple system of order and tradition and convention has been destroyed. It was destroyed by the impact of our own civilisation. Our civilisation has therefore an inescapable duty to set up another system of order and tradition and convention.

Paton 154

Ultimately, Arthur’s hopes are fulfilled through his father. After coming to his funeral, Arthur’s father reads his works and experiences a change of heart. He later donates to the small town of Ixopo, and provides for the people of another race. Although in the end of the book Kumalo’s son is executed and his sister stays a prostitute in the city, the end remains hopeful because Kumalo’s grandson (a baby) comes to live in the town with his mother (the son’s wife). Arthur’s death strangely unites the people in the novel, almost evocative of a Christ-like sacrifice.