Alan Paton

“Cry, the Beloved Country” by Alan Paton is a novel about priest Stephen Kumalo, and his discoveries concerning corruption, faith, friendship, change, and tradition in the dynamic settings of Ndotsheni and Johannesburg, cities in South Africa. The novel carefully details the effects of advanced European society on the tribal systems of South Africa; and Paton analyzes how these societies and their laws affect young black people and their rights. The desertion of Ndotsheni by Kumalo’s family and the younger generations of tribal Africans to the urban societies of South Africa illustrate the demise of the tribal system. The tribal system is destroyed by the desertion of the younger generation. The tribal system and the urban civilizations of …show more content…
A long and devastating drought was taking place when the priest arrived at Ndotsheni from Johannesburg. Although the narrator does not initially describe the unfortunate state of Ndotsheni, the misfortunes of the community are revealed to the reader on page 269, when Kumalo says to the little boy visitor that they have no technology comparable to Johannesburg, and that they have no milk. Kumalo gives the reader a glimpse of his town when he says, “There is neither grass nor water there… the maize will not reach to the height of man… the cattle are dying, there is no milk. Malusi’s child is dead, Kuluse’s child is dying.” The predicaments of Ndotsheni can be interpreted as a sign of despair for the community and the tribal system of South Africa. From the very beginning of the book, the reader is able to understand that some parts of South Africa Paton described as irreparable and utterly destroyed. He used many of the same descriptions to describe Ndotsheni in the last ten chapters of the novel, such as “...the dead streams come to life, full of the red blood of the earth,” (Paton, …show more content…
It is Kumalo’s, or Paton’s, idea that the young people have resorted to crime because of their lack of education in academics and morals. This migration of tribal Africans to Johannesburg, and the in-between state of living in the slum-like suburbs of Johannesburg symbolize the demise of the tribal system. Just as the desertion of Ndotsheni by Kumalo’s relatives symbolizes change (and the breakup of the tribal system), the young people moving from the tribes to Johannesburg symbolizes great change for South Africa, change in the form of tribal decline and migrations to cities. Kumalo later believed that Johannesburg and other cities of its like corrupt the souls raised in places like Ndotsheni, in places that upheld traditional systems of Africa, like the tribal