Cry, The Beloved Country.

            In Cry, The Beloved Country, the author, Alan Paton, uses detail of the land to help describe his message in the story. When he uses the detail and diction, he is showing the clash of cultures and how different each race lives. He rhetorical devices to help get his message across the readers by comparing and contrasting the land of each race and to prove the Europeans have taken over. His message in the story is to show how the land has changed drastically by the European, the natives’ ways have been forgotten, and to show the difference of how people are affected by where they live

            Alan Paton has used the describing of the land to prove that the European’s have taken over. According to Alan Paton, Ixopo has “grass [that] is rich and matted” it’s also “well-tended” but now “the grass is rich and matted” yet “it is not kept or guarded.” The author uses an antithesis to show the clash of cultures. The land has been corrupted from peaceful to dry and shows that the European ideas have taken over. Paton proves that the natives have real problems when “Shanty Town is [built] overnight” and it is made out of “plank and iron” but they all wonder “what {they will] do in the rain [and] in the winter.” The author uses rhetorical questions to show that the natives have questions but they really do not have any answers. The natives have been moved out of their towns and have been forced to build a new town to live in overnight while they do not have any money and it shows the natives have bigger problems now that the Europeans have moved in and taken over everything. 

Paton describes the land to show how people are affected by the way they live. Paton introduces the novel by saying “these hills are grass-covered and rolling, and they are lovely beyond any singing of it” but the land is hit with drought and the “streams are dry in the kloofs” and now “the soil cannot keep them anymore.” Paton parallels this open setting with the moral righteousness and purity of the character of Pastor Stephen Kumalo. The land’s transition from untainted to corruption shows Kumalo’s evolving perception of people’s ways of life during his visit in Johannesburg. Alan Paton proclaims in Cry, The Beloved Country that “the soil can not keep [the people] anymore. This sentence emphasizes one of Paton's main themes: one must maintain tradition to thrive and to thrive prosperously. Tradition is a reliable source for advice because it has been tested and proven successful by generations of people.

Alan Paton uses description of the land to describe many things in Cry, The Beloved Country. He uses the description to show his message to his readers. By describing this land he shows how the Europeans have taken over, how the natives’ ways have been forgotten, and how different people are affected by where they live. When he does this, the readers get a better understanding of, not just the book, but they understand why the characters act the way they do.