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Cry, the Beloved Country Cry, the Beloved Country conveys the idea that prejudice causes violence. Throughout the book Dan Watches shows how the biased laws of the white man caused the black man to resort to stealing and other forms of crime including murder, simply to survive and raise a family. As white men founded more mining sites, the requirements for workers grew, thus, so did the cities. The white men hired up the black men as to keep the wages low. The black men worked hard for the white men in hopes for an increase in pay but to no avail. Eventually, the black men needed more than what the discriminatory white men would give and turned to crime to compensate for the inadequate wages.
Crime was an apparent result of this prejudice. The story begins with a child bringing a letter to the Reverend Stephen Kumalo from a brother in Christ (Paton 37). Evidently the letter concerned the welfare of Stephen Kumalo's sister, Gertrude Kumalo who had become a prostitute. As the story goes, Gertrude Kumalo s husband went to Johannesburg to earn money for his family by being employed at the mines. He never wrote back and could not be found by his pursuing wife, who left to find her husband.
She, herself, became engulfed in the behavior of Johannesburg s society. In order to support her child she became a prostitute in one of the worst places in Johannesburg, Claremont. Gertrude, also, never wrote home. Stephen Kumalo then sent his son, Absolom, to find Gertrude and bring her home. Absolom too became lost in the corruption in Johannesburg and never wrote back.
Stephen Kumalo then leaves Ndotsheni to Johannesburg to find his sister and son to bring them back. Just after Stephen Kumalo steps off the bus, some black man cheats him. Another black man informs him of how he was cheated and takes him to the mission house where Stephen Kumalo is introduced to Reverend Theophilus Msimangu and others in the mission. During dinner the desecration of the land caused by the white mans laws is discussed.
A newspaper is shown to Stephen Kumalo that reads OLD COUPLE ROBBED AND BEATED IN LONELY HOUSE. FOUR NATIVES ARRESTED (Paton 52). In Johannesburg this happens nearly everyday (Paton 52). The party then breaks up to their quarters for the evening.
The next day Msimangu takes Stephen Kumalo to speak with his sister. When Stephen asks about his son she replies with I did hear of him, brother (Paton 62) but she was not sure where to find him. Gertrude refers Stephen to their brother John whose son who was with Absolom. Stephen went to see John and discovered that Absolom did work at a factory with John s son. Stephen wished to call the factory to get in touch with Absolom but learned that [white men] do not do such things for a black man (Paton 70). So on went Stephen and Msimangu on their journey.
When they reached the factory they found that the two boys no longer work there, they had left nearly 12 months earlier. For the next few chapters, Stephen and Msimangu were chasing different indications of Absolom s whereabouts until they learn of his involvement in a murder. Absolom was accused of killing a white man in his house. Not just any white man, but a white man who abetting the black people, Arthur Jarvis who once lived in Ndotsheni. Absolom tells the whole truth in hope of lenience and pleads for an acquittal. The acquittal is granted to his friends who were present at the crime but claimed they weren t there.
Absolom explains that he didn t carry the gun with the intent to kill but to protect himself from the white man he didn t mean to kill Arthur Jarvis, only to scare him and accidentally pulled the trigger. John had his son use chicanery to get out of trouble. John had told his son to tell imaginary tales of the events that had happened on the day of the murder. Stephen disapproves of this and goes to his bother and lashes out with great hostility explaining that not only blacks were suffering but also whites, an example being Mr. Jarvis, the father of the murdered man.
Mr. Jarvis didn t always get along with his son. His son believed that all blacks were innocent because the white race had caused blacks to resort to violence. After the death of Arthur, Mr. Jarvis became more stubborn about his views of blacks until he read something his son had been writing. This changed the beliefs of Mr.
Jarvis he now understood what his son Arthur was fighting for this whole time. He began to see the injustice of the white mans laws. After his son s sentence, Stephen Kumalo returned to Ndotsheni and promised to pray for his son on the day of his hanging. Before the sentence day came, there was a strong rain. Because the church in Ndotsheni wasn t prepared for a heavy rain due to a leaking roof, Stephen Kumalo ran to it and did what he could to save it. Mr.
Jarvis arrived seeking shelter and encountered Stephen Kumalo. These men had met once before in Johannesburg discovering their common basis of the situation their sons had been caught up in. In the church Stephen consoles Mr. Jarvis, who then offers to give money to help repair the church under the agreement that a stone be places with the name Arthur Jarvis. Through his narration, Alan Paton describes the adversity and turmoil that filled many Africans lives that caused much violence. In this case, a man was murdered because another man was afraid.
Alan Paton proved that something bad could yield something good. In the beginning, Mr. Jarvis believed black and white should be isolated however the whole situation turned his beliefs around which illustrated that peace between white and black is possible giving hope for the future. Works Cited Paton, Alan.
Cry, the Beloved Country. New York, NY: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1948.
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Research essay sample on Cry The Beloved Country Stephen Kumalo
