Beloved Country To The Bible example essay topic

Biblical Influences on Cry, the Beloved Country or: Cry, the Beloved Country: Like the Bible but Shorter To anyone and everyone: This is one of the great books! It reads like a lovely poem. Enjoy and reflect. -- unknown lawyer from Chicago The owner of the South Haven, Michigan bookstore The Hidden Room discovered this simple yet memorable comment written firmly on a memo card of a noted Chicago legal firm. The card was left in a copy of Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country. From his early childhood, Paton was a lover of language and a devout Christian. As he grew into a masterful poet, writer, and orator, his passions remained with him, a constant influence on his works.

This is especially evident in Cry, the Beloved Country, Paton's first and most highly esteemed novel. Cry, the Beloved Country is the story of Stephen Kuma lo, an elderly black parson in a small poverty- and drought-plagued tribal village in the racially torn country of South Africa. He undertakes a journey to the corrupt, terror-ridden city of Johannesburg where he searches, both physically and emotionally, for his son Absalom, as well as his old way of life. From Paton's use of rhythm to the names he chose for his characters, strong Biblical influence is apparent throughout the novel.

Though Paton incorporates several different oratorical styles in Cry, the Beloved County, the style of the book as a whole is frequently described as Biblical. The language throughout the novel, simple and lyrical, is reminiscent of the King James version of the Bible; the entire book has a lilting, almost musical quality. This echoes the style that carries over from the original Hebrew into good translations of the Bible, known as Hebrew poetry. Many of the passages in the novel are so rich in the devices of Hebrew poetry they seem to almost imitate parts of the Old Testament: The grass is rich and matted, you cannot see the soil. It holds the rain and the mist, and they seep into the ground, feeding the streams in every kloof.

It is well-tended, and not too many cattle feed upon it; not too many fires burn it, laying bare the soil. Stand unshod upon it, for the ground is holy, being even as it came from the Creator. Keep it, guard it, care for it, for it keeps men, guards men, cares for men. Destroy it and man is destroyed.

With its melodic rhythm and holy, commanding tone, the above passage emulates the Old Testament's Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Another characteristic of Hebrew poetry is the aphorism, or "wise saying". The Reverend Msimangu's remark, "I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they are turned to loving, they will find we have turned to hating", is one example of aphorism in the novel. The "they" Msimangu speaks of is the white population of South Africa, and the "we" is the black majority, forced into social, political, and economic inferiority by the white minority. Instead of explicitly stating his fear, Msimangu uses aphorism to poetically express himself, further paralleling Cry, the Beloved Country to the Bible.

Hebrew poetry also employs apostrophe, which is the direct address of an absent or imaginary person or of a personified abstraction, especially as a digression in the course of a speech or composition (site dictionary). An example of this is the address of the country of South Africa in the passage from which the novel gets its title: Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much. (site site blah blah) The mainly simplistic, understated rhetoric and unadorned phrases of Paton's novel, combined with his poetic, Biblical style of writing make Cry, the Beloved Country understandable and relational while raising it to an almost holy status.