Examples Of Biblical Allusion In Cry The Beloved Country

The use of Biblical allusions and references is evident in Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country. Against the backdrop of South Africa's racial and cultural problems, massive enforced segregation, similarly enforced economic inequality, Alan Paton uses these references as way to preserve his faith for the struggling country. By incorporating Biblical references into his novel, one can see that Alan Paton is a religious man and feels that faith will give hope to his beloved country. Throughout the entire novel, Alan Paton continuously uses references to the bible and while some are not very apparent, most of them are considerable evident. Four apparent references that he uses are seen in Stephen Kumalo's character, Absalom's decisions to

Since ancient times, there has been a connection between dreams and the spirit world. In the Bible there is story of a dream where angels were ascending and descending a ladder from heaven to earth. To the ancient Hebrews this dream demonstrated the assurance of God’s devotion to the Jews, His “chosen people”. The Egyptians believed that deities could visit them in their dreams and give them advice. In one dream the Pharaoh was visited in a dream by the god Ptah who gave a symbolic action that the Pharaoh interpreted to mean victory in battle. This interpretation of the visit was confirmed when his troops were victorious in battle. Another example of spiritual visitation occurred when Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire had a dream

In the novel, Cry, the Beloved Country, Reverend Stephen Kumalo and his people deal with social and political hardships in South Africa in the 1940s. The novel begins with the accidental murder of James Jarvis’s son, Arthur Jarvis. It is revealed that Stephen Kumalo’s son was the one who killed him while trying to steal from his home. When he sees Arthur, who he thought was not home, he gets frightened and shoots and kills him. Throughout the novel Alan Patton talks about Kumalo’s son as someone who went down the wrong path. He never says he is a genuinely bad person. He tries to make the reader feel bad for him rather than hate him, even though he killed a man while raiding his home.

In the novel Cry, The Beloved Country, the author, Alan Paton, writes about the current struggles within South Africa through the eyes of two opposite characters. James Jarvis is a wealthy white man coping with the loss of his son while questioning his feelings towards black citizens. Stephen Kumalo is a native black priest whose life changes when he is summoned to Johannesburg and discovers the vices and reality behind large cities and his home country. Kumalo receives a first-hand view of the issues within his country along the journey and meets various individuals. It is later revealed that his son, Absalom Kumalo, has been corrupted by the city and has murdered a white activist by the name of Arthur Jarvis, who happens to be the son of

Regardless of William Golding's personal beliefs, his use of biblical allusions in Lord of the Flies strongly contribute to the building of the characters and the outcome of the story. The book of Genesis is essentially about the beginning of many important realities; the creation of the universe, God's plan and how God’s perfect, sinless world was turned into a shattered society by sin. In Lord of the Flies the book progresses through the boys loss of innocence and fall from grace.

    Many debates have been sparked by Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country.  Even the essence of the book's title examines South Africa and declares the presence of the inner conflict of its citizens. The importance and meaning of the title of Cry, the Beloved Country is visible in Paton's efforts to link the reader to forthcoming ideas in the novel, Paton's description of South Africa's problems, and Paton's prayer for the solution of South Africa's difficulties with race and racial oppression.

This memoir was in a way Krog’s genuine apology for benefiting from a system that caused so much bloodshed and stripped the humanity from so many thousands of people. Through her reporting of the TRC testimonies, and the publishing of her book she allowed the rest of the world to be informed of the terrible crimes that had taken place, as well as the government and political involvement in the creation of this racial segregation. In her memoir Country of My Skull, while reporting on the direct testimonies of both the victims and perpetrators, Antjie Krog actively emphasizes her strong feelings of guilt, shame, and the emotional weight or burden she carries for benefitting from such a corrupt system. By revealing the true nature of the white South Africans responsible for the apartheid, Krog in a way denounces her race of being a white South African and asks to be accepted into a unified South Africa by the Black South Africans.

The novel, The Grapes of Wrath, is a story that construes the journey of the Joad family through the brutal migration from Oklahoma 's destroying Dust Bowl to California corrupt promised land. Through the depiction of events and portrayal of characters, the bible takes part in the novel as one whole allusion. The anecdote of the struggle for survival in the fallen state of Oklahoma and in the “promised land” of California, reveals the same ideas shown as we explore in the bible. In The Grapes of Wrath, author John Steinbeck integrates the allegory of biblical references and values to create the image of a family’s journey to California during the Dust Bowl of the early 1900s.

Abraham Lincoln once stated that, “If you look for the bad in people and expect to find it, you surely will.” Stephen struggles with detecting the faults in other people's lives throughout the book Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton. Anticipating people to embody a bad reputation could ruin his relationships with the people he meets. When Stephen, a father and Umfundisi looking for his family, visits his son’s girlfriend and his sister in the city of Johannesburg, the conditions they live in shock him and he immediately judges them because he expected to discover something bad and he did. Stephen evinces the redemption cycle through his interactions with Absalom's girlfriend and his sister Gertrude.

Alan Paton, the writer of the book, first introduces the country, South Africa as the central aspect, because a lot is being talked about it regarding how well it is endowed with beauty and natural resources. The nation is also blessed with fertile farms, which are rendered unproductive. The reason behind the unproductive nation is because the majority of people are leaving the rural areas to go to the city for greener pastures. The story revolves around a distinctive character by the name Stephen Kumalo, who happens to know the configuration of young people flocking to the city of Johannesburg after leaving their remote areas. The elderly, Christian priest who lives in Ixopo, a village in the rural South African region of Ndotsheni, has also been affected

Cry, the Beloved Country is a novel written by Alan Paton; the novel is filled with biblical allusions referring to II Samuel. Cry, the Beloved Country was first published in 1948 and stands as the single most important novel in twentieth-century South African literature. Cry, the Beloved Country; a work of blazing artistry, is the intensely moving story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son Absalom, and how they were set against the background of a land and a people divided by racial injustice. Cry, the Beloved Country is a classic work of love and hope, courage and endurance, born of the dignity of man. The author, Alan Paton parallels II Samuel and Cry, the Beloved Country which heightens the understanding of the novel.

Although not always recognizable, biblical allusions enhance the writing of novels, and connect specific themes to the Bible. Throughout Cry, The Beloved Country, Alan Paton has placed numerous biblical allusions, corresponding to the common theme of Man’s relationship with God. Some of these allusions pertain to actual verses from the Bible placed into the story. Others are abstract and are representations of themes from the Bible. Generally, Alan Paton has ingeniously placed biblical allusions to emphasize the relationship between man and God.

John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California, on February 27, 1902. He studied marine biology at Stanford University and then traveled east on a freighter through the Panama Canal. Steinbeck went to New York to work as a newspaper reporter but soon returned to California and held a variety of jobs while he wrote. Steinbeck published Tortilla Flat in 1935, Of Mice and Men in 1937, and The Red Pony in 1937, which established his reputation as a forceful writer. In 1939 he wrote The Grapes of Wrath, which summoned up the despair and hardship of the early 1930's. John Steinbeck died in 1968. The Grapes of Wrath is a story about one family's hardship during the Depression and the Dust Bowl of the

“…the naked riders leaning forward…They rode up out of the river among the willows…” –page 45

The Bible is most widely sold book in history, and possibly the most influential. Contrast that with The Grapes of Wrath, a book that was banned in America until rather recently, and the two seem very unrelated. However, John Steinbeck uses the bible as a source of inspiration in The Grapes of Wrath and includes references to the Bible throughout the book. Steinbeck’s book serves to protest the large big business capitalism, that plagues the migrants throughout the book and promotes a socialist revolution in the United States. The biblical references featured in The Grapes of Wrath are meant to show the common people will always prevail over the powerful minority, and there will always be a Christ-like figure that will lead that revolution. Steinbeck utilizes The Grapes of Wrath to open the reader to the idea of a democratic socialist revolution in the United States by grounding his argument in biblical allusions to emphasize his socialist rhetoric.