It presents a powerful combination of literal historical social protest and lyrical beautiful prose depicting nature and universal human ideals, to tell the story of the “apartheid before Apartheid” chapter of South Africa’s history, as seen through the eyes of a black minister and a white farmer. Though the novel highlights great injustices’, the decay of tribal culture, poverty, and racism, ultimately Paton’s message is that of hope. There is hope that mankind’s faculty for good will triumph and a concern for fostering the capacity for justice in individuals.

The novel begins in the village of Ixopo, with Stephen Kumalo a Zulu preacher from Ndotscheni, Natal Province receiving a letter urging him to come to Johannesburg to help his sister Gertrude, who is ill. Kumalo heads to the city to find his son Absalom, who left to look for Gertrude and never returned. Upon arriving in the city, Kumalo learns that Gertrude has taken up a life of prostitution and turned to a sinful lifestyle. He then begins to look for his son with the priest Msimangu, and learns that he has been in a reformatory and impregnated a woman. Kumalo then finds out his son has been arrested for the murder of Arthur Jarvis, a white fighter for racial equality and the son of his neighbor James Jarvis. Subsequently Arthur’s father James Jarvis a white farmer from Carisbrooke, Natal Province learns of his own son’s death, and comes to Johannesburg. He then reads some of his sons writings and learns of his struggle and work for South Africa’s blacks. Absalom receives the death sentence for his crime. Kumalo then returns to the village with his daughter-in-law and nephew. Once back Kumalo meets with Jarvis, and Jarvis offers money to help build a new church. The novel ends with Kumalo alone up in the mountains weeping for his son’s death, with an attitude of optimism and rejuvenation for the country.

The novel begins with a description of the great natural beauty of South Africa, and ends on the note that more beauty is on its way, once there is emancipation from the bondage of fear. A prominent theme found throughout is that of the contrast between the beauty of the landscape and political turmoil and its successive fear. Cry, the Beloved Country is set in a fragile nation where awe-inspiring beauty is marred by the fear in its people,

[“Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much."]

Paton further speaks of fear preventing anyone from enjoying beauty. How can one enjoy such things when fear lies in their heart? And it is this fear that drives the plot as well as the racist attitudes on both sides. Absalom says he was carrying a gun because it was dangerous and he was afraid, but is that action of having a gun not further perpetuating the climate of fear? And surely the bigoted attitude of the whites towards the African’s is derived from fear and fear of native crime. In the novel we see Jarvis speaking with John Harrison his daughter-in-law’s brother, as Harrison discusses how the whites are scared stiff of the natives in Johannesburg. He speaks of other friends who have been victimized, and how they don’t go to bed at night without barricading the house. But who is to blame for this situation?

We later see in the essays of Arthur Jarvis his attitude that despite highly debatable good intentions by the whites, that it is the system they have implemented and the destruction of traditional tribal society that is to blame, rather than some sort of inherent lesser character of the natives.

[“Our natives today produce criminals and prostitutes and drunkards, not because it is their nature to do so, but because their simple system of order and tradition and convention has been destroyed. It was destroyed by the impact of our civilization. Our civilization therefore has an inescapable duty to set up another system of order and tradition and convention.”]

He then cites the setting aside of one-tenth of the land for four-fifths of the people as creating the problem for themselves since they knew labor would come to the cities. Arthur urges that it is a moral problem that must be remedied by good Christian people, fearful or not. Paton himself was a Christian but in a liberal sense that prized the individual, justice and freedom. The novel explores the thought that Christianity can be used to justify repressive ideas. For example when Arthur Jarvis cites that some people believe opportunities for education etc. should not be given to black Africans, since God meant for them to be unskilled laborers.

Cry, the Beloved Country was published in 1946 at a time when native Africans were in a highly peculiar and dire situation. Apartheid was not to be instituted until a couple years following the novel’s publication, but the country was still suffering heavily from racial segregation, prejudice, and inequality derived from the reserve system. Earlier in the 20th century two landmark pieces of legislation were passed that would set the stage for the development of the native African’s lesser place in South Africa. The Native’s Land Act of 1913 which allotted Africans 7% of all land, and the remaining 93% to white South Africans. This was followed up with the Native Trust and Land Act of 1936 which was said to apportion the Africans an additional 6%, however they ultimately only ended up with approximately 11.7% of all lands, despite being 80% of the population. The extreme poverty and limited opportunity in these reserves created a migration of poor Africans from rural tribal areas into urban cities. This oscillating system of cheap labor ran the gold mines and other things crucial to the economy; however workers were paid barely enough to survive. Black workers were only allowed to hold menial jobs and were subject to “pass laws” that restricted their freedom of movement. Thus native Africans found themselves lost as tribal culture disintegrated under the pressures of western culture, as they were trapped in the harsh inequalities imposed by white South Africa, leading to the underlying cause of crime and the “mentality of the ghetto”. Though the novel does appropriately pose the question, is crime and murder an appropriate response to the situation. Though Paton’s novel raised issues in the national consciousness, the situation in South Africa continued to get much worse. In 1948 the Afrikaner National Party instituted Apartheid making segregation official policy.

Cry, the Beloved Country struck me as one of the most beautiful novels I have ever read. I am an avid reader and am often harshly critical, but I was entirely swept up in the power and splendor of this novel. I believe Paton succeeded in successfully portraying an objective view of the black and white sides of the issue. As I often found my sympathies swaying between the two protagonists. The novel effectively depicted the plight of black Africans at that time. I feel as though I gained much more in depth understanding of the mentality behind pre-Apartheid conditions.

I found the writing style to be very fitting as a means with which to most clearly convey the narrative. Paton uses a style garnered from reading Steinbeck’s works. There are no quotation marks in the book, instead a dash (-) is used to designate someone is speaking. This results in no “he said” or “she said” phrases, the story moves at a faster more frantic pace striving towards something climatic. However this did become rather confusing at times as it became difficult to track who was speaking at which time. Paton also makes use of intercalary chapters that serve to provide more perspectives on life in Johannesburg.

The warnings against fear struck me as particularly resonant in today’s political climate, where whipping up a frenzy of fear of terrorism was and is used to control the masses. We are told we are not safe unless we vote a certain way and believe certain unsubstantiated claims. As Msimangu put it, “I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they have turned to loving; they will find we have turned to hating.” Paton did an excellent job in portraying the extreme danger from all consuming fear.