Alan Paton's Cry, The Beloved Country, the Image of the Waste Land, and the Existential Voyage of Discovery Anonymous College

Alan Paton, in his novel Cry, The Beloved Country, reflects on the institutionalized ruling of the white colonizers over South Africa before the years of Apartheid. However, rather than being pessimistic and outrageous about the torments of his chaotic nation, Paton employs the role of his protagonist Stephen Kumalo to kindle moral awareness about humanity in general and human morality in particular. Susan Wanless Smock clarifies this notion in her article “Lost in the Stars and Cry, the Beloved Country: A Thematic Comparison:” “For Paton, the end of South Africa’s racial problems is not in sight; this, the final tone of Cry, the Beloved Country is one of qualified hopefulness” (Smock 58). On his journey from Ndotsheni to Johannesburg to find his missing people, Reverend Kumalo suffers through a waste land of the newly developed city to find not only people but a fierce longing for love and hope.

“There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills” (Paton 33). The place Reverend Stephen Kumalo starts his journey, under Paton’s portrayal, turns out to be a picturesque and benign landscape. However, Johannesburg–where he is heading to–is a complete juxtaposition from his familiar place: “We go down and dig it out,...