He lives a quiet life with his wife in their home, and to their village standards live a middle-class life. Kumalo goes to Johannesburg where he is overwhelmed by the larger city and sets on a mission to find his son Absalom. Kumalo's physical and mental health start to deteriorate on this exhausting journey. One clue leads to another in the whereabouts of Absalom, starting as a factory worker, to a burglar, to being in a reformatory to being a killer. Kumalo is in disbelief of the man who his son has become, the little boy he raised has taken a severe detour in his life down a spiral path.
The older man and Goodman Brown reach their destination only to find that the respected members of his community and surrounding communities, to include his wife Faith, are being inducted into an evil brotherhood or cult at the black mass. After seeing all the people that he respects and love fall to the evil temptation, Goodman Brown returns home the next morning “a stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man” (482), who is distrusting in the purity of man; this is a condition in which he never recovers from and eventually follows him to his grave. If one bases their attitudes, beliefs, and core values on other peoples, then those attitudes, beliefs, and core values are not their own and can be easily shaken or destroyed. Goodman Brown sets off on his journey at dusk expecting to return to his Faith in the morning, but during his dark quest, he makes several encounters along the way that would ultimately change his
Both Kumasi and the homeland serve to symbolize the refined society of years past. However, soon after the readers are introduced to these rolling hills they also find that a drought and poor farming are turning the land brown. The land’s transition from perfect to corrupt mirrors Kumalo’s perception of people’s ways of life during his visit in Johannesburg. As Kumalo arrives in Johannesburg, he finds that his son is missing and his sister has become a prostitute. These details disturb Kumalo, who then attempts to “save” his family members from the evils of Johannesburg by reminding them of the moral codes of the home
Jarvis is an intelligent and recognizes the need for change within South Africa. Before his son died, he would often clash with his son over controversial issues, such as the natives of the land. But his son’s death and his writings moved him enough to where he understood what his son meant. His intelligence is shown as he attempts to help those of Ndotsheni. Knowing that money would only be a short-term remedy, Jarvis looks for a way to let his community flourish even after he is gone.
James Baldwin's essay, “My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation,” shows how African Americans don’t receive their piece of the American dream. Baldwin writes this letter as an essay to his nephew to help guide him through his life. The best advice he gives is meant to bolster his nephew in a racist society, “I tell you this because I love you, and please don’t you ever forget it” (1). He tells him how his father was destroyed by whites calling him the N-word. He wants his nephew to let it go in one ear and out the other, and understand that what they say
“The Namesake” The movie followed an Indian man who moves to the Unites States, for a better life after experiencing terrible accidents as a young man. The movie takes the viewer on a life journey of father and son relationship. After Ashoke, moved to the United States, he travels back to his homeland to find a wife. His marriage was arrange, this show from the beginning that Ashoke, culture was very important to him and keeping his tradition was also very important. After having his children he struggle to in stored these values in his children.
Ricardo Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (Pablo Neruda 1904-1973) grew up in the hard-scrabble logging town of Temuco in Chile’s rugged southern frontier. He would later blame the endless rain for his melancholic personality, but beyond poetic license, the death of his mother from tuberculosis when he was two months old, his father’s hot temper, and family’s endemic poverty are more likely culprits. Young Ricardo was raised by his stepmother, whom he reverently called Ma’madre—more mother. He rode the rails with his father, a conductor on the maintenance train fleet. On these journeys he witnessed the indignities suffered by the railroad workers and local Mapuche Indians.
“The Runaways” illustrates how despite colonization another tribe has not forgotten its real, native character. They might act like they are obligated to but deep in their minds they have remained the same old people. They have not changed truly. They stick together in hard moments like that one. The tragic novel This Fall Apart written by Chinua Achebe illustrates the colonization of an African tribe by foreign missionaries which leads to the collapse of the community because people are no longer united.
Cry, the Beloved Country In any journey, a person learns and changes. Change, wether it be good or bad, comes in many different forms, spiritual, mental and physical. Every important, life journey shares a common pattern. The journey begins with a question, a challenge to the meaning of one’s life, a question that can’t be answered by the journeyers current life situation. Therefore the questioner leaves his comfort zone, and journeys into the unknown to seek an answer.
Literature Essay: Cry the Beloved Country - Environment Influences Character The internationally-acclaimed Cry, the Beloved Country focuses on the Apartheid era and the hardships of racial prejudice. The author, Alan Paton, zooms in on how a person's environment can influence his or her character and moral compass, this being one of the main themes in the book. He achieves this by vividly describing the journey of Stephen Kumalo to search for his lost family in Johannesburg. This essay will touch on the Kumalo men, that is, Stephen Kumalo, his son Absalom, and his brother John, and how their surroundings played a major role in how their lifestyle and situation turned out. Stephen Khumalo, being a simple man from the hills of Ndotsheni, is shocked and hurt to find his family's immoral condition in Johannesburg.