Cry, the Beloved Country: Analysis of Setting
"Cry, the Beloved Country" is a novel that explores the profound contrasts between rural and urban life in South Africa during a time of systemic racial discrimination. The setting shifts primarily between Johannesburg, a bustling city characterized by its economic opportunities and harsh realities, and Ndotsheni, a small Zulu village that embodies a simpler, yet impoverished way of life. Johannesburg represents both hope and despair, as many black Africans migrate there seeking jobs in the prosperous gold mining industry, only to face extreme poverty, crime, and disillusionment.
The narrative follows Stephen Kumalo, a Zulu priest, as he journeys to Johannesburg in search of his son, encountering the social challenges faced by the city's African residents, including his sister’s struggles with prostitution and his brother’s political corruption. In contrast, Ndotsheni reflects a community deeply rooted in tradition, highlighting the stark differences Kumalo perceives upon his return from the city. The contrast is further deepened by the character of James Jarvis, whose prosperous farm, High Place, symbolizes isolation from the struggles of his African neighbors until he is compelled to act following his son’s death. Through these settings, the novel addresses themes of racial inequality, the quest for understanding, and the possibility of redemption in a divided world.
Cry, the Beloved Country: Analysis of Setting
First published: 1948
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Social realism
Time of work: Mid-twentieth century
Asterisk denotes entries on real places.
Places Discussed
*Johannesburg
*Johannesburg. South Africa’s biggest and most advanced city and center of the country’s prosperous gold mining industry. During the period in which the novel is set, Johannesburg, like the rest of South Africa, is governed by increasingly rigid racially discriminatory laws and customs, all of which favor the country’s white minority. Nevertheless, black Africans flock to the city and its mines from impoverished rural areas to find wage employment and other opportunity. However, even in the great city, jobs are hard to find.
The novel focuses on the quest of Stephen Kumalo, an educated Zulu man ordained as an Anglican priest, to find his son in Johannesburg. After he reaches the city, he discovers his sister working as a prostitute and selling bootleg liquor, and his brother, who has become a corrupt political activist. Meanwhile, he observes the downtrodden condition of the city’s African residents and the extreme racial inequalities in economic and political conditions. He yearns to be back in his own village, back to the innocence and the simple way of life.
Paton uses the modern city to accentuate Kumalo’s naïve expectations of city life. As Kumalo explores Johannesburg, he sees the worst of humanity: extreme poverty, prostitution, crime, filth, destitution, and deprivation. The city is the worst place he can imagine. However, even within this great center of racism and distrust, he encounters kindness and humanity—mostly from fellow African and white clergymen, who comfort and support him when his religious faith and optimism begin to leave him. Through their small kindness, Paton redeems the city.
Parkwold Ridge
Parkwold Ridge. Johannesburg home of Arthur Jarvis, a tireless activist for African rights who has been murdered by Kumalo’s son, Absalom, during a burglary attempt on the house. After Jarvis’s death, his father, James Jarvis, for the first time begins to understand his son’s dedication to African rights through his exploration of his son’s study, which is filled with books and his writings on the need for African reforms. Gradually, father gets to know his son better in death than he ever did in life. He learns that his son loved the land of South Africa itself. Although he fought almost alone in his cause and his principles, he was passionate about the sufferings and disenfranchisement of the majority of his country’s peoples. It is within his home that his life’s work on African reforms exists.
Ndotsheni
Ndotsheni (en-doh-TSHAY-nee). Arid and impoverished Zulu village in South Africa’s Natal Province in which Stephen Kumalo and his wife live in a simple home. Kumalo’s son, sister, and brother have all fled the village for the big city in search of better opportunities, and Kumalo, in turn, finally leaves the village to search for them. Only after seeing Johannesburg does he fully appreciate the simple and truthful ways of his home. The novel’s descriptions of Ndotsheni underscore the jarring differences of Johannesburg. Kumalo’s faith in humanity is restored after he returns home and sees the changes brought by James Jarvis’s material contributions to Ndotsheni’s welfare and agricultural development: daily milk supplies for children, a new dam, and other improvements.
High Place
High Place. Prosperous farm owned by James Jarvis, the father of Absalom’s murder victim. Although Jarvis’s farm is near Ndotsheni, Jarvis and Kumalo never cross each other’s path until they become aware of each other through their shared tragedy. Indeed, Jarvis has always isolated himself from the lives of his native African neighbors, and his interest in their welfare is minimal until after he meets Kumalo. The aptly named High Place is where James Jarvis isolates himself from Africans.
The time and energy Jarvis devotes to his farm also prevents him from understanding his son in his true light until after his son is dead. In honor of his son and moved by his growing understanding of the desperate economic problems of his African neighbors, Jarvis draws on the resources of his farm to make substantial contributions to the agricultural development of Ndotsheni.
Bibliography
Alexander, Peter F. Alan Paton: A Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. A particularly engaging, well-documented, enormous biography. Provides important background information on the genesis of the novel in chapters 12 and 13.
Brutus, Dennis. “Protest Against Apartheid.” In Protest and Conflict in African Literature, edited by Cosmo Pieterse and Donald Munro. New York: Africana, 1969. A notable and substantive critique of Cry, the Beloved Country from a black South African perspective. Argues that the novel’s simple, direct protest against apartheid is not forceful enough against the monstrosity of racism.
Callan, Edward. Alan Paton. Rev. ed. Boston: Twayne, 1982. Contains ten chapters based on Paton’s own 1981 volume of autobiography, Towards the Mountain. Provides significant general background on Paton’s life and times, and a critical evaluation of his fiction, drama, biography, and poetry, including a full chapter on Cry, the Beloved Country.
Callan, Edward. “Cry, the Beloved Country”: A Novel of South Africa. Boston: Twayne, 1991. A supplement to the 1982 study, focused on the historical and literary context. Includes an eight-chapter critical reading and interpretation of the novel.
Paton, Jonathan. “Comfort in Desolation.” In International Literature in English: Essays on the Major Writers, edited by Robert L. Ross. New York: Garland, 1991. A general discussion of Alan Paton’s work, written by the younger of his two sons. Identifies a Christian ethic that calls for comfort in desolation as the single, most significant element of Cry, the Beloved Country.