"Who knows how we shall fashion a land of peace where black outnumbers white so greatly?. The whites are at a loss as to what to do. The disenfranchised blacks carry out violent crimes against the whites, plunging Johannesburg into fear. Paton describes South Africa - the beloved country - as a land fractured with hatred. Such a serious style, after all, is befitting of an examination of such weighty issues and strong emotions.
Yet the land itself, with its vast, rolling plains, offers a glimmer of hope and promise.Īs heartachingly beautiful as the continent of Africa itself, Alan Paton's poetic prose evokes the majestic cadence of the King James Bible. The country is in great pain its inhabitants see no way out of their quandary. Powerful emotions propel the plot forward, set against the turmoil in South Africa during the 1940s and 1950s. Desperately, he flails to save the life of his son, who will almost certainly be sentenced to death for his crime. His efforts to rebuild the tribe and return to Ndotsheni seem futile.
When Kumalo arrives at Johannesburg, he is heartbroken to find his sister living as a prostitute, and his son arrested for the murder of a white man. Upon receiving a letter from Reverend Msimangi in Johannesburg telling of Gertrude's whereabouts, Kumalo ventures into the great city to look for her and Absalom. But Kumalo has not heard from them for a long time. His sister Gertrude and his son Absalom left the countryside village of Ndotsheni some time ago in search of better job prospects.
Set in South Africa, the novel opens with Reverend Stephen Kumalo preparing to make a journey to Johannesburg. Paton is not interested in drama for the sake of entertainment or a good story he seeks to represent the drama of life itself, of love and hate, of fear and greed, and of the power of forgiveness. But so resonant is Paton's work that even calling it "drama" sounds shallow. Drama forms the core of Alan Paton's novel Cry, the Beloved Country.
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