Cry of the Beloved Country is a book about courage. Two of the main characters, James Jarvis and Stephen Kumalo discover new things about their sons. While they both lost many things like relatives and trust, James Jarvis was the more courageous and advanced characters. James Jarvis was able to forgive and move on with the loss of his son and his wife. Jarvis develops in the way that he wants to devote his life to helping the blacks. He even helped Stephen Kumalo’s town, which was also his hometown.
Stephen Kumalo lived a quiet life as the Umfundisi of the solemn town of Ndotsheni. One day he gets a letter which brings him to the city of Johannesburg. While in Johannesburg he finds his sister and discovers that she is an abomination and a disgrace to the Kumalo family. She has a son with no father, worked as a prostitute, and will not put herself together. Stephen also meets his brother John who he has not heard from since John left Ndotsheni. Stephen is shocked to find that he es one of the cities leading activists and loves living in Johannesburg.
Kumalo searches for his son Absalom and has a hard time doing it. Once he finds him he discovers that he has committed a murder by killing Arthur Jarvis, one of the cities favored people and James Jarvis’ son, and that he is to be sentenced to death. Stephen speaks with his son and learns that he really wants to go back to Ndotsheni and that he intends to marry his girlfriend before he is to be hanged. Stephen Kumalo becomes a very ashamed man for what has become of his family. Kumalo is a man of God so he does not intend to get hung up by this too much.
The Essay on South Africa Kumalo Blacks Jarvis
Cry, The Beloved Country: The Breakdown and Rebuilding of South African Society.".. what God has not done for South Africa man must do." pg. 25 In the book, Cry, the Beloved Country, written by Alan Paton, some major conflicts follow the story from beginning to end. Two of these conflicts would be as follows; first, the breakdown of the ever so old and respected tribe; and second, the power of ...
When Kumalo returns to Ndotsheni, he grieves over the loss of his son, but in the end he comes to an inner peace and ties up loose ends with James Jarvis. James Jarvis is an economically rich man who lives on a hill near Ndotsheni. He is a very ignorant man in the beginning who feels that the blacks do not need or deserve help. Jarvis is then crushed when he discovers that his son Arthur Jarvis has been murdered. When James goes to Arthur’s house, he reads some of the things the Arthur had written.
He always knew that Arthur liked to help the natives, but this was the first time he was seeing Arthur’s work. James discovered that Arthur put his life into trying to help improve the lives of the natives. James has an epiphany and sees things the way that his son did. James Jarvis then decides to devote his life to help the natives in Ndotsheni. He sends an agriculture instructor to teach the villages how to farm correctly. He also pays for a new church to be built, and he buys milk for the children of the village. James Jarvis grieves over the loss of his son.
He then meets Stephen Kumalo and discovers that it was Kumalo’s son who murdered Arthur. Jarvis is willing to forgive Kumalo. After a while, James’ wife dies and he feels that he has nothing left. Jarvis still tries to help Ndotsheni as much as he can. Based on all of what happened, I believe that James Jarvis was the most courageous and developed the most. James Jarvis lost two family members. Although he had not seen his son in a long time and they did not exactly see eye to eye on things, Arthur was still very close to him.
James Jarvis overcame these hardships and was even big enough to forgive the family of Absalom, the man who murdered Arthur. He even consoled with Kumalo over the death of his wife because Kumalo felt that Absalom killing Arthur indirectly killed his wife. James also developed during the book from an ignorant man, when it comes to sympathy for the blacks, to a compassionate man who wanted to dedicate his life to helping and improving the lives of the blacks in Ndotsheni.
James Jarvis and Stephen Kumalo learn about the lives of their sons throughout the course of this novel. Stephen also finds out that his family is not that of an ideal family. James loses two of his closest family members as well as helps out the village of Ndotsheni. Stephen Kumalo and James Jarvis share a lot of troubles like that of losing a family member, or not knowing what to do, but James Jarvis definitely showed a lot more courage and development in his life during this novel.
The Essay on James Jarvis
Authors often use symbolism to describe their characters more in depth. An example of symbolism in the novel, Cry, the Beloved Country, is the relation of the character James Jarvis to a broken mirror and a half-filled glass. A broken mirror resembles Jarvis’s journey and how it reflects to that of Kumalo’s, and also how his life and ideas were shattered by the death of his son. A glass half- ...
