Segregation In CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY.
In “Cry The Beloved Country”, Alan Paton clearly displays a segregation between the white man and the natives. As depicted in the book, the natives live in Ndotsheni, which happens to be a low set aside land that is dried out and parched, where Stephen Kumalo can be found. While Arthur Jarvis lives on a separate plantation which is on a high off plateau, with lush green grass and many cattle. A constant theme in the that prevails throughout the entire novel is oppression or apartheid. Which has to do with the title of the novel, it happens to be one of the reasons the people of South Africa are crying due to the constant discrimination. “Because the white man has power, we too want power, he said. But when a black man gets power, when he gets money he is a great man if he is not corrupted. I have seen it often He seeks power and money to put right what is wrong and when he gets them, why, he enjoys the power and the money.”(P.70) Paton tries to explain through Kumalo that the black man can be just as powerful as the white man yet he can fall into the same corrupted pattern that the white man is in.