Repentance in Cry, the Beloved country
Concepts of Forgiveness, Faith, and the Redemptive Value of Suffering with regard to Cry, the Beloved Country By: Alan Paton
Through Paton’s use of faith and forgiveness in Cry, the Beloved Country he demonstrates the concept of redemptive value through Kumalo’s suffering and Absalom’s repentance. Kumalo’s suffering makes the reader feel sympathetic because of the sudden, yet constant, uprising conflicts in the storyline. Absalom’s repentance makes the reader feel reflective because they start to consider the moral lessons being taught in the story. Faith and forgiveness are combined to create the redemptive value of suffering, or repentance.
The concept of forgiveness in Cry the Beloved Country is very crucial to the plot because Kumalo has many family members that he needs to forgive before he can leave Ndotsheni to go and help them in Johannesburg. When Kumalo’s wife questions him about his well-being he replies angrily, “Hurting myself? Hurting myself? I do not hurt myself, it is they who are hurting me. My own son, my own sister, my own brother. They go away and do not write anymore. Perhaps it does not seem to them that we suffer. Perhaps they do not care for it.”(39) Here Kumalo comes to the realization of the importance of this trip to Johannesburg, he must go there to find them and forgive them for the suffering they have caused. When he first goes to find his sister, Gertrude, he is angry at her for shaming his family, “You have shamed us, he says in a low voice, not wishing to make it known to the world. A liquor seller, a prostitute, with a child and you do not know where it is? Your brother a priest? How could you do this to us?” (61) Kumalo becomes angry interrogating her about her sins hoping, possibly knowing, that between the fear, discomfort, and guilt she feels that she will repent and pray to become a better person. In Book two the perspective shifts to James Jarvis, Father of late Arthur Jarvis, James Jarvis doesn’t have any need to
Through Paton’s use of faith and forgiveness in Cry, the Beloved Country he demonstrates the concept of redemptive value through Kumalo’s suffering and Absalom’s repentance. Kumalo’s suffering makes the reader feel sympathetic because of the sudden, yet constant, uprising conflicts in the storyline. Absalom’s repentance makes the reader feel reflective because they start to consider the moral lessons being taught in the story. Faith and forgiveness are combined to create the redemptive value of suffering, or repentance.
The concept of forgiveness in Cry the Beloved Country is very crucial to the plot because Kumalo has many family members that he needs to forgive before he can leave Ndotsheni to go and help them in Johannesburg. When Kumalo’s wife questions him about his well-being he replies angrily, “Hurting myself? Hurting myself? I do not hurt myself, it is they who are hurting me. My own son, my own sister, my own brother. They go away and do not write anymore. Perhaps it does not seem to them that we suffer. Perhaps they do not care for it.”(39) Here Kumalo comes to the realization of the importance of this trip to Johannesburg, he must go there to find them and forgive them for the suffering they have caused. When he first goes to find his sister, Gertrude, he is angry at her for shaming his family, “You have shamed us, he says in a low voice, not wishing to make it known to the world. A liquor seller, a prostitute, with a child and you do not know where it is? Your brother a priest? How could you do this to us?” (61) Kumalo becomes angry interrogating her about her sins hoping, possibly knowing, that between the fear, discomfort, and guilt she feels that she will repent and pray to become a better person. In Book two the perspective shifts to James Jarvis, Father of late Arthur Jarvis, James Jarvis doesn’t have any need to