Alan Paton: CRY,
THE BELOVED COUNTRY
The
Story takes place in 1946 in a province of South Afrika. Although the uplands
of Ndotsheni are still fertile more and more young people move to Johannesburg
and very few return. The Reverend Stephen Kumalo is worried. Also his son Absalom, his sister
Gertrude and his brother John went there. None of them wrote him a letter.
One day
Reverend Theophilus Msimangu , a Zulu and an Anglican priest like him, writes
Kumalo that he has to come to Johannesburg immediately because Gertrude is ill.
Taking all his money with him he enjoys the trip and being there Msimangu tells
him Gertrude is a prostiute. Next day he goes to her and she agrees to go back
with him Ndotsheni and give up her life. He also takes them to the house where
he stays. Kumalo´s brother John owns a shop and is everbody knows him. His son
is the best friend of Kumalo´ s son, nevertheless John doesn´t exactely know
where Absalom was. He gets a few adresses, but each of them is in a worse
neighbourhood and finds out that Absalom wants to marry a girl he made pregnant. Absaolm kills Athur
Jarvis, a white, who was the son of James Jarvis, who als lived in Ndotsheni
and is sentenced to be hanged, his compains, the son Kumalo´s brother not. So
Kumalo also wants to take the pregnant girl with him. On the day of return
Gertrude leaves without taking her boy with her.
Being
back there isn´t enough milk, so Mr Jarvis who has enough, brings them milk. He
also provides more lasting help of a new dam and advice of an agricultural expert
and the money for a new church.
