Cry The Beloved Country

CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY

I consider Paton's most prominent theme at this point of the novel is religion.

Acclaimed author Alan Paton pronounced in his novel that the “ground is holy’’ and therefore it shall be walked upon “unshod” being that it came from the “creator”. The acknowledgement of the ground being holy and that it was made by the creator represents that it should be treated well and looking rich. Paton wants to clarify how you should treat something that was created by the creator himself.

Paton points out that some of the people felt that the “church has a fine voice, but no deeds”. The people felt that the church could sound excellent when they said something, the message didn’t hit home in the peoples heart and make them feel something. The people were turning away from the church the church wasn’t doing the job the people felt it should do for them.

As Paton’s theme focus much on religion threw out this part of the novel he had situations when a character started to lose their faith and question God.

Paton identifies a moment when one of his main characters Mr. Kumalo states that there was no more “prayer left in [him]”. As Mr. Kumalo was learning more and more about his son troublesome ways he was starting to doubt the power of his prayers, he didn’t feel like it was helping anymore. Paton used this to signify that people wouldn’t think out of all people that this would come from a preacher.

Mr. Kumalo was feeling and thinking that “God has turned from [him]”. With everything that was going on Mr. Kumalo felt like he couldn’t win for losing to him it seemed as if God was no longer there with him. Mr. Kumalo should know better than anyone with him being a priest that God didn’t leave him just because the going is getting a little unbearably and hard to take in and handle.

Paton demonstrates situations where the people wanted to help out of the grace of God.

          Kumalo’s lawyer stated that he would “take the case for God”. He didn’t want money he wanted to do it out of the kindness he had in his heart and for the grace of God. Paton used this because not all people were mean and unkind and always wants money for their time and service.

          Mr. Kumalo’s rosy cheeked friend told him “if there was anything he could help with” all he had to do was just ask him. His friend wanted to help Mr. Kumalo because he was a priest himself and it is his duty as well to God to help those in need of help. He wanted to help he didn’t give Mr. Kumalo a limit to the favors he would help him with he just told him if there was anything you needed he would try his best to get it done.