SparkNotes: Free Study Guides No Fear Shakespeare: The Bard made easy SparkCharts: Just the facts TestPrep: SAT, ACT, and more 101s: College texts condensed Subject Finder: Browse by subject SparkCollege: Get in! SparkLife: 100% study-free home_bottom home_top BN_link
 
◄ PREVIOUS
Important Quotations Explained
NEXT ►
Study Questions & Essay Topics
 

Cry, the Beloved Country

 Alan Paton
 

Key Facts

 
full title  · Cry, the Beloved Country
 
author  · Alan Paton
 
type of work  · Novel
 
genre  · Father's quest for his son; courtroom drama; social criticism
 
language  · English
 
time and place written  · Various parts of Europe and the United States, in 1946
 
date of first publication  · 1948
 
publisher  · Charles Scribner
 
narrator  · The third-person narrator is omniscient, or all-knowing, and temporarily inhabits many different points of view.
 
point of view  · Books I and III are largely told from Kumalo's point of view, while Book II is told largely from Jarvis's point of view. A number of chapters, however, feature a montage of voices from different layers of South African society, and the narrator also shows things from other characters' perspectives from time to time.
 
tone  · Lyrical, grieving, elegiac, occasionally bitter
 
tense  · Past
 
setting (time)  · Mid-1940s, just after World War II
 
setting (place)  · Ndotsheni and Johannesburg, South Africa
 
protagonist  · Stephen Kumalo; James Jarvis
 
major conflict  · Stephen Kumalo struggles against the forces (white oppression, the corrupting influences of city life) that destroy his family and his country
 
rising action  · Kumalo travels to Johannesburg to search for his son
 
climax  · Absalom is arrested for the murder of Arthur Jarvis
 
falling action  · Absalom is sentenced to death; Jarvis works with Kumalo to improve conditions in the village; Absalom is hanged
 
themes  · Separation and reconciliation between fathers and sons; the impact of social injustice on individuals; crime and punishment; Christian love as a response to injustice
 
motifs  · Descriptions of nature; anger and repentance; repeated phrases
 
symbols  · The church, brightness, sunrise
 
foreshadowing  · When Kumalo sees in the newspaper that a white man has been killed by native South Africans during a break-in, he has a premonition that Absalom is involved.
 
 
Help | Feedback | Make a request | Report an error | Send to a friend

◄ PREVIOUS
Important Quotations Explained
NEXT ►
Study Questions & Essay Topics
 
 
 
 
 
 
Message Boards
Ask a question or start a discussion on the community boards.
  • Cry, the Beloved Country
  •  
     
     
     
    Printable PDF
    Download a printable version of this SparkNote.
     
    Click Here
     
     
    SparkCharts
    A textbook's worth of information on an easy-to-read chart.
  • Literary Terms
  •  
     
     
     
     
    Contact Us | Privacy Policy | Terms and Conditions | About | Sitemap
    ©2008 SparkNotes LLC, All Rights Reserved.