S    Sample Essay: Stephen Kumalo’s character

     Often known throughout the novel as "umfundisi," which is a Zulu title of respect, Stephen Kumalo is highly respected as the native African pastor of St. Mark's Church in the village of Ndotsheni and also as an upstanding, moral, strong member of the native South African community. Yet despite his good heart and soul, Kumalo has a terrible crisis to bear—the tragedy of his son's truancy and the justice that is meted out upon has family as a result. Beyond that, he is also watching the dissolution of the rural way of life he has always lived and championed.

Some traits that come out are his morality and naivete. Kumalo is naive because he has never ventured out of Ndotsheni and when he sees a little liveliness he thinks that that must be a big city. Once Kumalo steps foot in Johannesburg, the reality hits him that he has led a very sheltered life. Innovations brought by the Europeans to Africa, are things that Kumalo has never seen before in his life, and they scare him. Kumalo’s naivete contributes to the fear and confusions he feels his first days in the city, because he led a primitive life in his village. Seeing the streets of the big city, he thinks to himself,” how does one find one’s way in such a confusion?”. His fears of Johannesburg are a part of his inexperience in coping with the white man’s world which for a simple man is a complicated world full of traps and dangers while his own is simple and natural.  

When Kumalo dares to venture into the big city his ignorance of the greater world beyond his village is manifested. Being an outsider, Kumalo is a ready victim for opportunists. After Kumalo steps off of the train, a young man volunteers to purchase a bus ticket for Stephen he does not have to wait in line. Kumalo gives him the money trusting he would get the ticket for him, but the young man does not return. Due to Kumalo’s naivete he is cheated out of his money. Mr. Mafolo explains, “You have been cheated umfundisi.”

       Kumalo has the trait of faith. Throughout the novel Kumalo has faith in God. Whenever he is afraid or in doubt, he resorts to God and to his holy book because “it was this world alone that was certain.”

Kumalo is a caring, trusting, and essentially a humble person, but he is also a man with an inconsistent temperament. He always returns to God and repents for whatever he has done wrong. Like every human, Kumalo often becomes angry with other people and hurts them. Several times during the novel his feelings of anger get the best of him and he intentionally tries to hurt some other person. After each outburst, he is deeply sorry for his anger and makes reparations in some manner. Even in the first pages of the novel, he knows that he hurts his wife. He admits  ” I am sorry I hurt you, I shall go and pray in the church.”

Kumalo is angry with his sister, Gertrude for the way she chose to support her son and herself, and yells at her saying,” You have shamed us. A liquor seller, a woman of the streets, with a child and you do not know where it is. Your brother is a priest, how could you do this to us.” He yells at her out of love because he would like her to return to the way he knew her before, but his actions hurt Gertrude. By making him fallible rather than flawless, Paton ensures that we will be able to empathize with Kumalo’s experience.

Stephen is a virtuous man at heart, and is worthy of being a priest. Outside forces affected Kumalo greatly. The fact that his son, Absalom, went to Johannesburg and did not keep contact with him worried him greatly. After his sister went to look for him and also did not send word back to him, his worries became even greater. He was affected by their decisions and went to look for them. This changed his personality. While hoping they were doing well in Johannesburg, he realized that they were lost in sin. He sums up his suffering saying,“This is a bitter journey.”

Throughout the novel, Kumalo acts as a moral compass, the glue that holds his family together. Kumalo tries ceaselessly to repair the tribe, and to bring Gertrude, Absalom, and the rest of his family to where he believes they can put their lives in prospective, and live happily. However, his efforts are not successful in the end because he cannot make Gertrude or Absalom change their past trespasses, or way of life. He tries to preserve the traditional values he believes are correct, and he tries to make others moral. Stephen's suffering is seen partially in the fact that he wants to restore the family and the tribal system. He fears for his world which is “slipping away, dying, being destroyed, beyond any recall.” But through the course of the novel, he comes to an awareness that the tribal system can never be restored, and he fails in his attempts to restore his own family. Through these failures and the suffering caused by them, he matures into a man who has a larger appreciation for the trials that others must undergo.

Stephen Kumalo changes drastically during the course of the novel. He gains a great awareness of many facets of life by going on a journey to Johannesburg. Before this journey, he was a country priest who was a good man but who had no understanding of the wider world. He respected the tribal ways but had no understanding of why the tribe was breaking down and why the young people were leaving for the cities. Kumalo is the suffering hero; that is, before he can come to a complete awareness of life, he must undergo intense suffering. Only at the end of the novel does he come to understand the meaning of that suffering — that through suffering a person is made more aware of all aspects of life and can better sympathize with others.

Dear students, 

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QUiz 2 Commentary Question

“Yes, she is very sick. But it is not that kind of sickness. It is another, a worse kind of sickness.”

Comment fully by Mohamed El Touny 7C

Msimangu said these words to Kumalo at the Mission House in Johannesburg when Kumalo asked him about Gertrude and her sickness. Gertrude went to Johannesburg to look for her husband who went there and stopped writing letters and never came back. Msimangu asked Kumalo to come to Johannesburg to help his sick sister. When Kumalo arrives there, he knew that she is not physically sick, but spiritually. She sleeps with men to gain money to get food for her child and became a sinner. Gertrude is morally corrupt, but because Kumalo is a man of God and religion, immorality is distasteful to him and really upsetting. Kumalo was confronted with his first severe disappointment when he learns the truth about his sister. He found himself in a situation he has never encountered before. He did not know how to respond or what to do. This is a clear example of people who go to Johannesburg and change their values.  

Cry, the Beloved Country

Chapter 6

The streets of Claremont are filthy, and Msimangu explains that many of the children in the streets are not at school because there is no room for them in the classes. Msimangu waits up the street while Kumalo listens to the strange, unfriendly laughter coming from behind his sister’s door. Gertrude keeps Kumalo waiting while her unseen companions hastily rearrange and prepare the room.

Gertrude is sullen and fearful at first, and she tells Kumalo that she has not yet found her husband. Kumalo reproaches her for not writing and demands to see her child. When it becomes clear that she does not know where the child is, he tells Gertrude that she has shamed them, and announces that he has come to take her back. She falls on the ground in hysterics, saying that she wants to leave Johannesburg but is not a good enough person to return home. Softened by her remorse, Kumalo forgives her, and they pray together.

The confrontation with Gertrude is significant because when Kumalo first meets her, he takes a hand that is cold and dead. Symbolically, Gertrude is spiritually dead, but gradually, through the warmth and sincere devotion of Kumalo, she begins to come alive. She continues until there is a scene of sincere repentance on her part; then she confesses that she is sick and wishes to return home. The large city has made her sick; a general sickness abounds throughout Johannesburg. We also see a change in Kumalo in that at first he judges his sister harshly before he slowly begins to sympathize with her and ultimately forgives her.

The chapter ends on the hope that the tribe will be rebuilt and that Stephen's house will be restored. But as the search for Absalom will prove, the house is destined to undergo greater tragedy before it can be rebuilt.

Discuss the major problem facing the native population in South Africa.

Paton’s novel is primarily concerned with the tragedy that has afflicted South Africa: the exploitation of the blacks by whites and the consequence of the loss of an entire way of life. The cries of South Africa are delivered to the readers. These cries are based on the discrimination due to the difference in colour.

First of all, racial discrimination is apparent in the novel through the unfair distribution of the land. The lush grass of the hills clings to the rain and mist which makes it green and fruitful, “for the ground is holy, being just as it came from God.” Paton describes the land as sacred, as something to live upon and look after, believing that it will always support its residents. Similarly, traditions deserve respect, and without traditions and land, man’s sense of belonging disappears.

        On the other hand, blacks live in the damaged, neglected valleys, at the bottom of the superior white hills which “fall to the valley below and falling changes their nature.” There is a great difference between both farms and lands.  The blacks live where the land is “tough and sharp”, beside the “red hills” that stand empty. “The great red hills” is symbolic; the land is read and when it is washed into the rivers due to erosion, it colours the rivers, symbolizing the suffering of the people because of the unfair human rights and distribution of land. “The earth has torn away like flesh” as if the land was one great wound and Africa bleeds because of injustice and discrimination.

        The landscape is the mirror image if the South African society, devastated but with the hope of being unified. This is one of Africa’s fairest valleys but when the land and the people are not able to co-exist, when the equally born blacks and whites are not able to respect each other, that beauty is disrupted. All the whites have taken the most profitable farm from the blacks; there is a sharp contrast between the whites' lush hills and the blacks’ barren fields. This contrast highlights the two opposing worlds in the novel and stresses the co-existence of the 2 South Africas.

        As a result of the unfair distribution of land and the breaking of the tribal society occurs, in addition to the breaking of families and loss of traditions and identities. The people of the land are losing their traditions and identity, and their society is falling into despair. Their “own world is slipping away, dying, being destroyed, beyond any recall.” Young men and women are moving out of town to look for opportunities in other places – usually Johannesburg due to the city’s temptations. “When people go to Johannesburg, they don’t come back.” For example, Kumalo’s family is disintegrated because most of his close relatives went to Johannesburg. His sister, Gertrude and her child, his brother John, and his son Absalom, all went and never came back.

Due to the disintegration of Kumalo’s family, he is trying to bring his family back together and have some hope. There can be no tribal unit until the basic family unit is restored.

“Cry, the Beloved Country” had a certain purpose which is to awaken the population of South Africa to the racism that is slowly disintegrating the society and its people. Alan Paton designed his work to express his views on the injustices and racial hatred that plagued South Africa, in an attempt to bring about change and understanding.

By: Laila Sherif 7B

Stephen Kumalo’s character

Often known throughout the novel as "umfundisi," which is a Zulu title of respect.Stephen Kumalo is highly respected as the native African pastor of St. Mark's Church in the village of Ndotsheni and also as an upstanding, moral, strong member of the native South African community. Yet despite his good heart and soul, Kumalo has a terrible crisis to bear—the tragedy of his son's truancy and the justice that is meted out upon has family as a result. Beyond that, he is also watching the dissolution of the rural way of life he has always lived and championed.

Throughout the novel, Kumalo acts as a moral compass, the glue that holds his family together—but he also represents more than that. He is the very definition of survival. Kumalo grew up in a small village and as he journeys out to Johannesburg his personality is exposed when he interacts with other characters.

Some traits that come out are his morality and naivete. Ndotsheni made Kumalo who he is because of how he acts in contrast with those people who live in Johannesburg. Kumalo is a caring, trusting, old-fashion man, but he is also a man with many faults. Like every human, Kumalo often becomes angry with other people and hurts them. When Kumalo dares to venture into the big city his naivety of the greater world beyond his village is manifested. When Kumalo is on the train traveling to Ndotsheni he sees a little town and asks if that is Johannesburg, but the others in the train just laugh at him.

Kumalo is naive because he has never ventured out of Ndotsheni and when he sees a little liveliness he thinks that that must be a big city. Once Kumalo steps foot in Johannesburg, however, the reality hits him that he has led a very sheltered life. Innovations brought by the Europeans to Africa, are things that Kumalo has never seen before in his life, and they scare him. Kumalo s naivete contributes to the fear and confusions he feels his first days in the city, because he led a primitive life in his village. After Kumalo steps off of the train, a young man volunteers to purchase a bus ticket for Stephen he does not have to wait in line. Kumalo gives him the money trusting he would get the ticket for him, but the young man does not return. Due to Kumalo s naivete he is cheated out of his money.

When he leaves Johannesburg he is a different man and is no longer naive to the difficult and dangerous way of life in the city.

Stephen is a virtuous man at heart, and is worthy of being a priest. Kumalo tries ceaselessly to repair the tribe, and to bring Gertrude, Absalom, and the rest of his family to where he believes they can put their lives in prospective, and live happily. However, his efforts are not successful in the end because he cannot make Gertrude or Absalom change their past trespasses, or way of life.

Stephen is always looking out for the well being of his friends and family members. Kumalo s honorable attitude is also demonstrated when he forgives Msimangu for his harsh words, and quick temper. Stephen quickly forgives Msimangu and moves on. He does not reprimand Msimangu or dwell on the fact that he has a high temper.

Kumalo is also an admirable person because he tries to preserve the traditional values he believes are correct, and he tries to make others moral. Stephen helps the marriage of Absalom and the girl take place. The girl and her child will grow in a loving home in a quiet village. Kumalo also urges Absalom to tell the truth. Kumalo is a good, honest man at heart, and his qualities are reflected in Absalom throughout the story. Kumalo also exhibits negative characteristics. One of his downfalls is his devilish intention to harm others at times. Kumalo is angry with his sister, Gertrude for the way she chose to support her son and herself, and yells at her. He yells at her out of love because he would like her to return to the way he knew her before, but his actions hurt Gertrude.

Kumalo has both good and bad characteristics. His personality makes him a likable character because the reader can relate to him in some ways, and by making him fallible rather than flawless, Paton ensures that we will be able to empathize with Kumalo’s experience. Kumalo’s naivete attributes to his congeniality, and at times provides humor in simple confusions.

Stephen is a kind preacher, who is honest and forgiving yet at times, can be cruel. Kumalo s actions portray him like a real person with different feelings at different times. His character alters greatly from his trip to Johannesburg, and when he would have been weak before, he is now strong.

         In “Cry, the Beloved Country” by Alan Paton there is a protagonist and an antagonist. The protagonist is Stephen Kumalo, a Zulu priest, who lives in the village of Ndotsheni. He is not a perfect priest, but is good at his job. The antagonist is not a person but a place. It is the city of Johannesburg. Johannesburg is where Kumalo travels to find his son, Absalom. It is viewed by the protagonist as an evil.

       Kumalo, the protagonist, has the trait of faith. Throughout the novel Kumalo has faith in God. Although he strays from his faith occasionally, he always returns to God and repents for whatever he has done wrong. He goes through many challenges throughout his journey but through it all he is faithful. Johannesburg, the antagonist, has the trait of wickedness. When Kumalo goes to Johannesburg, he is overwhelmed by the wickedness of the city. His experiences of getting robbed and finding his sister in such horrible conditions, pretty much as soon as arriving, shocks him. He is surprised that his son could live in such a place, which completely goes against his upbringing by his father.

            Kumalo is the protagonist because he is the main character who goes on a journey to find his son. Johannesburg is the protagonist because the town is what goes against the main character. Kumalo first looses his son in the city then his sister and nephew. Johannesburg acts as an evil entity devouring parts of his family. Kumalo goes to save his family who had been lost in the wicked city. The city causes problems for Kumalo. It seems that the weak minded who enter the city are lost into sin, while only those with strong faith can withstand the temptations which lie within. Kumalo is one who withstood the temptations although had hardships at times. Johannesburg is the enemy of Kumalo.

-                    Outside forces affected Kumalo greatly. The fact that his son, Absalom, went to Johannesburg and did not keep contact with him worried him greatly. After his sister went to look for him and also did not send word back to him, his worries became even greater. He was affected by their decisions and went to look for them which. This changed his personality. While hoping they were doing well in Johannesburg, he realized that they were lost in sin.

Stephen Kumalo changes drastically during the course of the novel. He gains a great awareness of many facets of life by going on a journey to Johannesburg. Before this journey, he was a country priest who was a good man but who had no understanding of the wider world. He respected the tribal ways but had no understanding of why the tribe was breaking down and why the young people were leaving for the cities. Throughout the novel, from beginning to end, he is humble, pious, and sensitive. At all times he is very sensitive to any hurt that he might cause others and is aware of the feelings of people. Even in the first pages of the novel, he knows that he hurts his wife.

He is essentially a humble person, but several times during the novel his feelings of anger get the best of him and he intentionally tries to hurt some other person. After each outburst, he is deeply sorry for his anger and makes reparations in some manner.

Kumalo is the suffering hero; that is, before he can come to a complete awareness of life, he must undergo intense suffering. Only at the end of the novel does he come to understand the meaning of that suffering — that through suffering a person is made more aware of all aspects of life and can better sympathize with others.

Stephen's suffering is seen partially in the fact that he wants to restore the family and the tribal system. But through the course of the novel, he comes to an awareness that the tribal system can never be restored, and he fails in his attempts to restore his own family. Through these failures and the suffering caused by them, he matures into a man who has a larger appreciation for the trials that others must undergo.

If Kumalo has been a failure in his attempt to restore (reconstruct) his own family, he does not give up. Instead, he turns for hope to the younger people, that is, his son's wife and her child and Gertrude's young son. Furthermore, upon his return from the city, he no longer relies upon the chief's word but knows that if things are to be accomplished he must find some other method than relying upon the older traditions connected with the tribal chief. He then begins to work for a better Africa and devotes his energies to a larger problem than that of restoring his own personal family.

Cry, the Beloved Country

Chapter 5

This chapter provides an interesting commentary on the status of South African politics around the publication of the novel in the late forties.

Msimangu explains that he does not hate the white man, in part because a white man “brought [his] father out of darkness” by converting him to Christianity, demonstrating that some natives welcome this religion imported from Europe. He confides to Kumalo, nevertheless, that he believes that white people have broken the tribal structure without leaving anything in its place. Msimangu explains that some white men are trying to rebuild the country for all people, but that they are not enough, and are held prisoner by the same fear that rules the rest of the country. He says that Father Vincent, the rosy-cheeked priest at dinner, is the best person to ask about such things.

 

Once again, Paton details how foreign and backward Kumalo feels in Johannesburg. As this chapter makes clear, Kumalo represents an obsolete and tribal way of life that is crumbling around him.

        Before the beginning of the novel, Gertrude's husband left her with her small son to go work in the mines, and stopped writing letters home. Gertrude went to Johannesburg to look for him and disappeared in turn. When Gertrude stopped sending word back to Ndotsheni from the city, Absalom moved to Johannesburg to look for her—and we all know howthat turned out (in disaster, that's how).

Not only is Gertrude the reason that Absalom goes to Johannesburg in the first place, but she is also the initial cause for Kumalo's trip to the city. Kumalo receives a letter from Msimangu asking him to come to the city and take care of his sick sister. It's only once Kumalo arrives that Msimangu breaks the news that Gertrude's "sickness" is her loose morality.

Gertrude makes her money selling illegal, homemade alcohol. But her sales are corrupting both her and the people in her neighborhood: there's a lot of gambling that goes on in her house, and a man was killed there once.

Kumalo goes to Gertrude to confront her about her immorality, the shame she is bringing on her priest brother, and the danger her lifestyle is posing to her young son. Gertrude initially freaks out and promises to return to Ndotsheni with Kumalo. 

Common mistakes in poetry:
- Incomplete sentences/fragments 
- lack of link between ideas and support (quotes)

Grateful and thankful due to the abilities that God endowed us with. (wide – think – love)	The tone is grateful and thankful as the poet thinks that Man is greater due to his abilities to love and think. He used words such as “wide-think- love” to convey the tone to the readers.
“ You are more than earth though you are such a dot You can love and think and the earth cannot” In terms of greatness, the world is bigger. Man has the abilities to love and think which God endowed us with.	At the end of the poem, the poet has come to realize that in terms of greatness, the world is surely bigger; however, Man is greater due to his abilities to love and think which are gifts that God endowed us with. The poet highlights this idea by writing: “You are more than earth though you are such a dot You can love and think and the earth cannot”
Sad and devastated because he thinks that we are destroying earth.	The tone is sad and devastated because he thinks that we are destroying earth.
“Hold fast to dreams” personification :as if dreams could run away, like a human. “For if dreams die”: personification: the poet imagines that dreams cold die like a person. “Life is a broken winged bird” metaphor: the poet describes life without dreams to a bird.	The poet used figures of speech such as personification and metaphor to stress on the importance of dreams. The poet used personification in “for if dreams die” and “for when dreams go”. Dreams are compared to people who can die or leave if you don’t hold on to them. This figure highlights how important it is for people not to give up on their dreams. Moreover,  a metaphor was used in “life is a broken winged bird” comparing a life without dreams to a bird with no wings. A bird can do nothing but fly, its life will be meaningless if it were not able to fly. Similarly, people, if they did not dream, will have a meaningless life if they did not dream. In the verse “life is a barren field” life with no dreams is compared to a field that is unproductive and fruitless, which indicates the value of dreams as life loses its purpose if one does not have a dream or a goal in life.