Study Guide to Cry, The Beloved Country and Other Works by Alan Paton

Intelligent Education

• Publisher: Influence Publishers
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781645420033
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Study Aids
• Subtopic: Study Guides

A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for selected works by Alan Paton, whose wide knowledge of the Union of South Africa culture inspired much of his work. Titles in this study guide include Too Late the Phalarope, Cry, the Beloved Country, and A Troubled Land by Alan Paton.As a collection of mid-twentieth-century novels, Paton's work offers incredibly realistic descriptions of existing cities and people in order to reflect societal effects on an individual's lives. Moreover, Paton uses literary devices such as symbolism to establish themes of love, understanding, and the land of South Africa in his literary works. This Bright Notes Study Guide explores the context and history of Paton's classic work, helping students to thoroughly explore the reasons they have stood the literary test of time. Each Bright Notes Study Guide contains: - Introductions to the Author and the Work
- Character Summaries
- Plot Guides
- Section and Chapter Overviews
- Test Essay and Study Q&AsThe Bright Notes Study Guide series offers an in-depth tour of more than 275 classic works of literature, exploring characters, critical commentary, historical background, plots, and themes. This set of study guides encourages readers to dig deeper in their understanding by including essay questions and answers as well as topics for further research.

INTRODUCTION TO ALAN PATON

South Africa, its peoples, and its problems are the subjects of Alan Paton’s two novels, Cry, the Beloved Country and Too Late the Phalarope, and his collection of short stories, Tales from a Troubled Land. His fiction reflects his wide knowledge of the many races and cultures of the Union of South Africa and his understanding of the problems and aspirations of the various groups in his native land. South Africa is overwhelmingly a nation of native Africans, but it is ruled by a white minority of European descent. The whites are made up of two groups. The English-speaking whites have a strong attachment to Britain and the Crown. The Afrikaners, people speaking a language derived from Dutch, have strong anti-British feelings and a marked sense of their own national identity. These two groups have traditionally regarded one another with either suspicion or hatred.

Paton was born January 11, 1903, in Pietermaritzburg in the English-speaking province of Natal, but his parents taught him to feel sympathy for the language and cultural struggle of the Afrikaners. His father was a civil-service employee and his mother a school teacher. Both were pious Anglicans. The piety he learned from his parents and their understanding of the Afrikaners are reflected in Paton’s fiction. Both the Rev. Stephen Kumalo and the murdered Arthur Jarvis in Cry, the Beloved Country are pious Anglicans. Pieter van Vlaanderen in Too Late the Phalarope is not saintly, but he is pious. Pieter is an Afrikaner, a member of the Dutch Reformed Church and his life in an Afrikaner community is told with sympathy and understanding. Paton never heard Afrikaans spoken as a child, but he learned it as a young man. He praises the suppleness and beauty of this language. When Paton’s education was completed, he learned Zulu, the African language spoken in Natal, and he acquired a knowledge of other African languages and cultures.

Paton was educated in Pietermaritzburg and constantly broadened his understanding of his own country. He finished his high school education at Martzburg College School in 1918 and then attended the University of Natal. He was active in the dramatic and religious societies and one year won the five mile race. He says that at this time he walked over every section of Natal with college friends, usually traveling thirty miles a day. At the University of Natal he learned to sympathize with the aspirations of the native Africans, the Coloreds (people of mixed blood), and the Indians. He excelled in both mathematics and English. After he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1922, he returned to the University to specialize in English, and he earned a Bachelor of Education degree in 1924.

On leaving the University of Natal, Paton became a teacher in a Zulu school in the country village of Ixopo. He used this setting in Cry, the Beloved Country. The village of Ndotsheni near the Drakenberg Mountains, where the Reverend Kumalo has his parish, is located near Ixopo. In 1928 Paton married Doris Olive Francis and the same year he took a post as teacher in his native Pietermaritzburg. He left this position in 1935 to become Principal of Diepkloof Reformatory near Johannesburg in Transvaal Province. The reformatory had just been transferred from the Department of Prisons to the Department of Education. Paton transformed this grim penal institution into a modern training school. His chief means of rewarding or punishing the boys was by giving or withholding more freedom to move about. There were at that time between 600 and 750 boys in the institution. It is the largest institution of its kind on the African continent. Because of Paton’s valuable work with these boys, the Department of Education refused to give him leave of absence to enlist in the army when war broke out in Europe in 1939. The account of Absalom Kumalo’s stay in a reformatory near Johannesburg in Cry, the Beloved Country and most of the stories in Tales from a Troubled Land, especially “Sponono” and “The Death of a Totsi,” are based on this experience. He was recognized as a leading authority in South Africa on corrective institutions. Towards the end of the war, he visited prisons and reformatories in Sweden, Norway, England, the United States, Canada, and other countries in order to study their methods.

While visiting Trondheim, Norway, Paton began to write Cry, the Beloved Country. He finished it in San Francisco and it was published in New York in 1948. It was very well received. James Stern wrote in the New Republic that it was “probably . . . one of the best novels of our time.” The same year Paton left the Diepkloof Reformatory and went to live on the southern coast of Natal. He wrote many articles on South African affairs, took part in many kinds of activities, and devoted some time to his two hobbies, bird watching and gardening. The nameless principal of the reformatory in Paton’s short stories also has a passion for gardening. Pieter van Vlaanderen in Too Late the Phalarope is very interested in plants and flowers and both Pieter and his father are bird watchers.

In 1951 Paton and his wife moved to the Toc H Tuberculosis Settlement. Mr. Arthur Jarvis and his wife, in Cry, the Beloved Country, were invited to visit Toc H. Here Paton was responsible for the training of African natives who were suffering from tuberculosis so that on discharge they would be equipped to earn a living. He was called to London in 1951 for consultation on the filming of Cry, the Beloved Country. He then began to write Too Late the Phalarope, and it was published in 1955. Tales from a Troubled Land was published in 1961. He also wrote nonfiction. Hope for South Africa, for example, which was published in 1958, gives a historical explanation of the complex cultural and racial problems of the Union of South Africa. It also outlines the solutions offered by the Liberal Party of South Africa. Paton was one of the founders of the Liberal Association of South Africa. This later developed into the Liberal Party and Paton became its President. For American high school boys and girls, he wrote The Land and the People of South Africa (1955). Paton was active in the Non-European Boys’ Club while at Diepkloof Reformatory. He was later elected the Club’s President. Arthur Jarvis in Cry, the Beloved Country is President of a similar organization, the Claremont African Boys’ Club.

Three of Paton’s works of fiction have been adapted for the stage. Cry, the Beloved Country was presented as a musical play in New York in 1949 under the title Lost in the Stars. Maxwell Anderson wrote the words for the play and Kurt Weill wrote the music. Paton adapted Too Late the Phalarope for the stage and it was presented in New York in 1956. Sponono, which is based on a short story of the same name, was given in New York in 1963. Krishna Shah helped Paton write this play.

Paton has received wide recognition for his novels and for his efforts on behalf of the native population of the Union of South Africa. Yale University gave him the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters in 1954. He was given the American Freedom Award in 1960 and in 1961 the Award from the Free Academy of Art in Hamburg, Germany.

SOUTH AFRICAN BACKGROUND

The prime cause of social injustice in the fiction of Alan Paton is apartheid. This Afrikaans word means “separateness” or “segregation.” Apartheid is very much like the practice of racial segregation in the American South. In the United States it is the policy of the federal government to remove discrimination and racial segregation. In the Union of South Africa, however, the official policy is to make laws that will bring about more and more segregation. Supporters of apartheid look forward to the day when Africans of different tribes, Coloreds, Indians, and whites will be living in absolutely separate communities, work at separate jobs, and be educated in entirely separate school systems. Supporters of apartheid claim that they wish to protect the African’s cultural integrity and tribal society.

Alan Paton and others who are opposed to the doctrine of apartheid deny all these claims. They say that white civilization and the South African industrial society have already destroyed forever the African tribal system. On attempting to separate the races, they claim, it is almost always the non-European (African, Colored, Indian) who suffers property loss, almost never the European or white. In giving separate jobs to the various races, whites receive the best ones and the lowest type of work is given to other races. The educational system of the non-Europeans is also very much inferior to that of whites. Opponents also point out that apartheid humiliates and restricts the non-European. At present the whites, who are a small minority, have most of the land and wealth. They claim, moreover, that apartheid cannot work because it is too expensive and because the South African economy is based on non-European labor.

The policy, but not the name, of apartheid was first established in South Africa in the 1770s. The Dutch ancestors of the Afrikaners were then pushing northward from the Cape of Good Hope and began to settle in the land of Xosas. These warlike African natives were, like the Afrikaners, cattle owners and a very determined people, but spears were no match for the guns of the Europeans. Since that time the attitude of the Afrikaner has remained inflexible, but the effectiveness of his racial policy changed as he encountered new peoples. His policy was also affected by changes in sovereignty. The Dutch East India Company established a rest station for Dutch trading vessels in Capetown in 1602, but it was not until 1657 that the Company permitted Dutchmen to take and farm land on the Cape. South Africa at that time was inhabited by the primitive Hottentots and Bushmen. They were few in number and were almost wiped out when infected by smallpox. West African slaves were imported the same year that Dutchmen began to farm on the Cape of Good Hope. Later Malaysian slaves were imported. Marriage between whites and blacks was at first acceptable. A new racial group, the Cape Coloreds, was produced by a mingling of Hottentots, Malays, and white settlers and sailors. There are over 1,300,000 Cape Coloreds today and almost all of them speak Afrikaans.

When large numbers of Dutch, German, and French settlers joined the original Dutch, interracial marriage was no longer approved. The racial attitude of the Afrikaner hardened and, like the whites in the American South, they believed that the Bible said that the various races were not equal and that races should not be mixed. T...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• 1) Introduction to Alan Paton
• 2) Introduction to Cry, The Beloved Country
• 3) Critical Analysis
• 4) Character Analyses
• 5) Review of Criticism
• 6) Essay Questions and Answers
• 7) Introduction to Too Late The Phalarope
• 8) Review of Criticism
• 9) Essay Questions and Answers
• 10) A Troubled Land
• 11) Bibliography