Cry, the Beloved Country

“The journey had begun. And now the fear back again, the fear of the unknown, the fear of the great city where boys were killed crossing the street, the fear of Gertrude’s sickness. Deep down the fear of his son. Deep down the fear of a man who lives in a world not made for him, whose own world is slipping away, dying, being destroyed, beyond any recall.”

Reverend Stephen Kumalo’s fear introduces the theme of The Duality of Hope and Despair. He fears his family is unsafe in Johannesburg due to racism by white South African people, which pervades every aspect of South African society. Therefore, he feels he lives in a world that he does not belong in.

“So they talked of the sickness of the land, of the broken tribe and the broken house, of young men and young girls that went away and forgot their customs, and lived loose and idle lives. They talked of young criminal children, and older and more dangerous criminals, of how white Johannesburg was afraid of black crime.”

In this quote, priests connect drought to the loss of tribal society. As Black South African youths forget their traditions in pursuit of power in Johannesburg, the tribe continues to break. The quote highlights the theme of Racial Divides and Societal Prejudice as the influx of Black South African youths causes white South African residents to fear crime due to racism.

“The tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that they are not mended again. The white man has broken the tribe. And it is my belief—and again I ask your pardon—that it cannot be mended again. But the house that is broken, and the man that falls apart when the house is broken, these are the tragic things. That is why children break the law, and old white people are robbed and beaten.”

Theophilus Msimangu believes the real tragedy in South Africa is the breaking of spirits. From his perspective, restoring a sense of community will restore both spirits and empathy for other people.

“It suited the white man to break the tribe […] But it has not suited him to build something in the place of what is broken. I have pondered this for many hours, and I must speak it, for it is the truth of me. They are not all so. There are some white men who give their lives to build up what is broken. But they are not enough […] They are afraid, that is the truth. It is fear that rules this land.”

Msimangu asserts white people have not restored the community they shattered through colonization. He fears there are not enough white South African people to make a change for the better since fear prevents good people from speaking out.

“One day in Johannesburg, and already the tribe was being rebuilt, the house

and the soul restored.”

After Kumalo brings his sister Gertrude to Mrs. Lithebe’s house, he feels hope that his goal of restoring the tribe has started. However, Paton uses this brief hope to show Kumalo’s naiveté.

“I do not say we are free here. I do not say we are free as men should be. But at least I am free of the chief. At least I am free of an old and ignorant man, who is nothing but a white man’s dog. He is a trick, a trick to hold together something that the white man desires to hold together […] But it is not being held together […] It is break apart, your tribal society. It is here in Johannesburg that the new society is being built. Something is happening here, my brother.”

Unlike his brother Kumalo, John believes the breakdown of the tribe is good for Black South African people. He is frustrated that chiefs subject themselves to the authority of white South African people.

“‘It is important to find gold, they say for all South Africa is built on mines […]

But it is not built on the mines,’ he said, ‘it is built on our backs, our sweat, on our labour.’”

John’s quote reflects the anger of the Black miners whom white South African people exploit for gold. Rather than allowing the miners to partake in the wealth, white people build Johannesburg with Black labor, while dehumanizing them.

“‘Because the white man has power, we too want power,’ he said. ‘but when a black man gets power, when he gets money, he is a great man if he is not corrupted. I have seen it often. He seeks power and money to put right what is wrong and when he gets them, why, he enjoys the power and the money […] Some of us think when we have power, we shall revenge ourselves on the white man who has had power, and because our desire is corrupt, we are corrupted, and the power has no heart in it. But most white men do not know the truth about power, and they are afraid lest we get it.’”

Msimangu fears corruption befalling men like John, should they desire power above all else. He tells Kumalo that he has seen power corrupt people with good intentions, even those who initially planned to give back to their community.

“But there is only one thing that has power completely, and that is love.

Because when a man loves, he seeks no power, and therefore he has power. I see only one hope for our country, and that is when white men and black men, desiring neither power nor money, but desiring only the good of their country, come together to work for it […] I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they are turned to loving they will find we are turned to hating.”

Msimangu knows love is the only force that can overrule power and corruption.For the sake of South Africa’s future, white South African people and Black South African people must come together. However, Msimangu’s fear is that white South African people will take too long to reach a place of understanding.

“Quietly my child, oh God make her quiet. God have mercy on us. Christ

have mercy on us. White man, have mercy upon us.”

In this quote, a mother in Shanty Town comforts her sick child, exemplifying how white supremacy dehumanizes Black South African people. The fact that she prays to a hypothetical white man as if he is God reflects how colonization has elevated white people to a god-like level.

“Who knows for what we live, and struggle, and die? Who knows what keeps us living and struggling, while all things break about us? Who knows why the warm flesh of a child is such comfort, when one’s own child is lost and cannot be recovered? Wise men write many books, in words too hard to understand. But this, the purpose of our lives, the end of all our struggle, is beyond all human wisdom.”

This quote reflects the theme of The Duality of Hope and Despair because it exemplifies the connection between these emotions. Kumalo struggles with understanding how he can continue to feel hopeful, even without the knowledge of his son’s current state.

“Sadness and fear and hate, how they well up in the heart and mind, whenever one opens the pages of these messengers of doom. Cry for the broken tribe, for the law and the custom that is gone. Aye, and cry aloud for the man who is dead, for the woman and children bereaved. Cry, the beloved country, these things are not yet at an end. The sun pours down on the earth, on the lovely land that man cannot enjoy. He knows only the fear of his heart.”

In this quote, Paton repeats the title of the novel to capture Black South African people mourning the loss of their culture. To him, the people of South Africa should mourn this loss, especially since fear prevents otherwise good people from standing up to racism.

“And some cry for the cutting up of South Africa without delay into separate areas, where white can live without black, and black without white, where black can farm their own land and mine their own minerals and administer their own laws.”

In this quote, Paton outlines the perspective of white South African people who call for segregation. This perspective frames segregation as something that will benefit everyone, when in reality, it leads to legalized apartheid.

“Who knows how we will fashion such a land? For we fear not only the loss

of our possessions, but the loss of our superiority and the loss of our whiteness.”

In this quote, an unknown white speaker voices the true fear of white South African people. These people’s so-called superiority is grounded in their whiteness, with any move toward equality being understood as taking away from white supremacy.

“What broke in a man when he could bring himself to kill another? What broke when he could bring himself to thrust down the knife into the warm flesh, to bring down the axe on the living head, to cleave down between the seeing eyes, to shoot the gun that would drive death into the beating heart?”

Although Kumalo does not know Absalom murdered Arthur Jarvis yet, he already fears he was involved. Despite his love for his son, he grapples with understanding what compels a person to kill another human.

“For a moment he was caught up in a vision, as man so often is when he sits in a place of ashes and destruction. Yet—it was true, then. He had admitted it to himself. The tribe was broken, and would be mended no more. He bowed his head. It was as though a man borne upward into the air felt suddenly that the wings of miracle dropped away from him, so that he looked down upon the earth, sick with fear and apprehension. The tribe was broken, and would be mended no more. The tribe that had nurtured him, and his father and his father’s father, was broken.”

Kumalo falls into despair, mourning the loss of his tribe. To him, a tribe represents community, therefore he mourns the loss of familial comfort and individual identity.

“‘He is a stranger,’ he said, ‘I cannot touch him, I cannot reach him. I see no shame in him, no pity for those he has hurt. Tears come out of his eyes, but it seems that he weeps only for himself, not for his wickedness, but for his danger […] can a person lose all sense of evil? A boy brought up as he was brought up? I see only his pity for himself, he who has made two children fatherless.’”

Kumalo has difficulty extending grace to Absalom because he does not believe he feels remorse. This makes Kumalo feel isolated from him because he cannot understand how his own child would not feel guilt for murder.

“We believe in the brotherhood of man, but we do not want it in South Africa.

We believe that God endows men with diverse gifts, and that human life depends for its fullness on their employment and enjoyment, but we are afraid to explore the belief too deeply. We believe in help for the underdog, but we want him to stay under […] We go so far as to credit Almighty God with having created black men to hew wood and draw water for white men.”

Arthur’s writing outlines the hypocrisy of white Christians who do not stand up to racism in South Africa. To him, these Christians spout beliefs they do not uphold in real life, failing to fight for equality.

“He stood up, but the boy caught his father by the knees, and cried out to him, you must not leave me, you must not leave me. He broke out again in the terrible sobbing and cried, No, no, you must not leave me.”

This moment comprises Absalom’s fall into despair and panic over his sentence.The threat of the death penalty causes him to regress, as he clings to his father like a child.

“He had come to tell his brother that power corrupts, that a man that fights for justice, must himself be cleansed and purified, that love is greater than force. And none of these things had he done. God have mercy on me, Christ have mercy on me. He turned to the door, but it was locked and bolted. Brother had shut out brother, from the same womb had they come.”

Kumalo’s anger toward his brother John—due to John’s son Matthew speaking against Absalom in court—causes them to fight, and he does not warn his brother about the power of corruption. He feels desperate because he wants his brother to work with love, not hate. However, John physically and emotionally locks Kumalo out of his life, and Kumalo experiences loss of family once more.

“Aye, but the hand that had murdered had once pressed the mother’s breast into the thirsting mouth, had stolen into the father’s hand when they went out into the dark. Aye, but the murderer afraid of death had once been a child afraid of the night.”

Kumalo grapples with Absalom’s loss of innocence because he remembers a time when he was a child, free from guilt. He has sympathy for his son and other criminals because there was a moment when they were innocent—but society strips them of this nuance.

“It was the white man who gave us so little land, it was the white man who took us away from the land to go to work. And we were ignorant also. It is all these things together that have made this valley desolate. Therefore, what this good white man does is only a repayment.”

Agricultural demonstrator Napoleon Letsitsi frames James Jarvis’s altruism as reparations rather than genuine kindness. Letsitsi and Kumalo must work hard to preserve Ndotsheni because white people took their land in the first place and made their way of life difficult.

“And what was there evil in their desires, in their hunger? That man should walk upright in the land where they were born, and be free to use the fruits of the earth, what was there evil in it? Yet men were afraid, with a fear that was deep, deep in the heart, a fear so deep that they hid their kindness, or brought it out with fierceness and anger, and hid it behind fierce and frowning eyes. They were afraid because they were so few. And such fear could not be cast out, but by love. It was Msimangu who had said, Msimangu who had no hate for any man, I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they turn to loving they will find we are turned to hating.”

Kumalo’s thoughts echo Msimangu’s earlier advice. Based on his experiences, he now agrees with Msimangu’s perspective. He knows there is nothing strange about a group of people wanting freedom in their land. However, Kumalo also knows fear will likely prevent this freedom for many years.