Cry, the Beloved Country Observations #4

Maile Danilchik

2/9/17

World Literature 10th

Cry, the Beloved Country Paragraph Assignment #4

Paton, Alan. Cry, the Beloved Country. New York, Scribner, 2003.

   It was believed throughout the native African community in Ndotsheni that “the white man” has broken the tribe. Many think that a broken tribal system contributed to native crime rates to spike and racial injustice. In Cry, the Beloved Country, the prosperous, busy city of Johannesburg serves as the white man’s town, and Ndotsheni in the poor countryside is the place of the tribe. Apartheid kept the two communities apart legally, but there was a political dynamic between the two locations. For instance, the crimes Absalom Kumalo committed in Johannesburg were said to be “the disastrous effect of a great and wicked city on the character of a simple tribal boy.” (Paton, 233). Johannesburg was the location of where many African youths wanted to go, but instead of gaining prosperity they get either are corrupted by the city or led down a path of crime.

In Ndotsheni, the black community seems to be reliant on white men to survive, Kumalo is aware of the dependency Ndotsheni has on white people, “Where would we be without all that this white man has done for us?” (Paton, 301). In many instances, favors done by a white person for a black person was seen as a rare miracle, and white reformers were idolized. However, the young demonstrator who comes to aid the African people of Ndotsheni explains that “it was the white man who gave [Africans] so little land, it was the white man who took us away from the land to go to work...Therefore what this good white man does is only a repayment.” (Paton, 302). The white man was said to destroy the tribe and cause racial divides; therefore the demonstrator believed that every good deed a white man did for the African community should not be viewed as a random act of kindness but something that is necessary to justify the past.